Rose Water Making…….. June 2021

The scent of roses from the garden over the last few days was reminding me that if I wanted to try to make some rose water this year that the time was now.

Rose water is something that I love mostly as the scent of roses  is one of my favourites, especially the highly perfumed old fashioned shrub roses

Having come across a recipe about a year prior from a Moroccan recipe book for rose water and almond biscuits, the idea of using flower water in baking,was so new to me at the time- I loved the result, being able to taste the scent of roses!

I had come across a fun and easy method of making rose water using ice cubes, as my daughter had recently taken to making iced drinks, she had been purchasing bags of ice cubes from the local shop-something I thought of as being very extravagant, soon I was following her with my own purchase of a big bag of ice from our local shop

I followed the recipe from  https://www.alphafoodie.com/organic-rose-water/

I improvised when it came to the saucepan, using one of our own with a glass lid as I thought it would also be nice to see the process through the glass. I discovered later that there was a steam hole in the glass lid which I had to plug with a small piece of cotton wool to stop melting ice from dropping into the awaiting bowl – this worked!

The process was slow and needed to be watched all the time but the scent of roses was heavenly

After a few hours, adding more petals and ice, the end result was a small  bottle of pure distilled rose water- I was very pleased

I strained off the remaining rose petals in the pot and bottled the liquid – this rose water is not the same top quality as the steam distillation but still great to have

Toptips

I gathered the rose petals on a very dry warm sunny day, removed the petals and spread them out on paper to let any creatures escape

This rosewater can be used in baking but also as a facial tonic-a little pick-me-up spray

Really lovely, and only required a small amount of rose petals

All of the roses came from our garden, we don’t use any chemical sprays- hence the raggedy look at times but non the less they produce beautifully scented flowers

The roses that I  use are old fashioned highly scented shrub roses like  the Apothecary rose- Rosa gallica,  Rosa rugosa or Rosa DeLa Haye, David  Austin roses are good too.