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
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.