Rose Desserts

As part of my experiment with edible flowers, I made two desserts out of rose petals this past weekend and to my surprise, both of them produced wonderful results.

Rose Sorbet
I used the delightfully spicy-smelling petals from my favorite vacant lot rose to make a rose sorbet. The recipe I was using called for petals from 16 roses, but I only had four so I cut the recipe by one fourth.

1-1/4 cups castor (superfine) sugar (I used powdered sugar–I think regular sugar would work fine too)
2 cups cold water
4 oz scented unsprayed rose petals (about 16 roses)
6 tbsp rosewater
2 tsp glycerin
juice of 1 lemon [optional]

1) Put the sugar and 1 cup of water in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Put the rose petals in the syrup and allow them to wilt, then add the second cup of cold water and the rosewater. Let cool for 20 to 30 minutes. Then add the glycerin (this preserves the wonderful bright color of the roses; without it the sorbet will be muddy looking and not so appetizing).
2) Let this mixture steep for 5 hours or overnight.
3) Add the lemon juice (I didn’t) and push the mixture through a sieve, to get all the juice out of the rose petals. Discard them.
4) Cool the mixture over an ice bath (I didn’t do this since it was already cool since I kept it in the refrigerator overnight), then churn using an ice cream machine. I don’t have one so I made the sorbet using instructions for making ice cream by hand from David Lebovitz, author of The Perfect Scoop.

Basically, you put it in a plastic dish in the freezer and set a timer for 45 minutes. At 45 minutes you stir it up with a whisk or a spoon, breaking up all the ice crystals that are forming. You set the timer for 30 minutes and do that again. And then another 30 minutes. And then another. And so forth for about two to three hours or until it seems done.

I have to confess I stopped stirring my sorbet after two hours. It stayed rather icy, more like a granita than a sorbet. That wasn’t a problem for me as I enjoyed the texture, the flavor and the color. I had much better success with this method of making ice cream when I made the recipe below.

Rose Ice Cream
I was so happy with the sorbet I wanted to make ice cream but I didn’t have any fresh rose petals. So I made this recipe, which requires fresh flowers, with the dried flowers from my pink rosa rugosa. They are much sweeter and pinker than the red rose.

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 cup sugar
5 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups loosely packed, very fragrant rose petals, washed and spun dry

1) Prepare an ice bath by placing ice cubes in a large flat-bottomed container that will hold the bowl where the ice cream will be chilled
2) Combine the rose petals and sugar in a food processor with the metal blade and make into a paste. (Since I used dried flowers, it was more like rose sugar than paste).
3) Combine the cream, milk and sugar paste in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a simmer and then take off the heat.
4) Place the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk until light. Then add the hot liquid slowly, whisking until thoroughly mixed. Return to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until it reaches 180 degrees on a candy thermometer or coats the back of the spoon.
5) Strain the mixture into a clean container (I didn’t do this since I didn’t mind the faint texture of the petals) and place in the ice bath.
Then you would proceed to make ice cream either as above or with your ice cream machine.

This recipe did not call for glycerin, but I think I would add that to the rose and sugar mixture to bring up the color. I added red food color instead and the end result was a muddy pink. It looks a bit like Play Doh and the texture is somewhat chewy as well but the flavor is like nothing I’ve ever tasted. I dream about it all day long. Luckily I still have some in the freezer.

Let me know if you have any success with these recipes or if you have another recipe you like.

Lavender Cheesecake

Last weekend I went to Whidbey Island for a wine tasting at a friend’s beach house. It was lovely event: amazing food, great wines, fascinating conversations, and some spectacular sunsets.

I promised to bring a dessert since I wanted an excuse to cook with flowers as that is my assignment for this month.  My plan was to make a lavender cheesecake.

I already had a recipe which I adapted from a regular cheesecake recipe and made successfully years ago. I put a few lavender stems into the hot milk mixture as it’s cooking, then remove them after they’ve imparted their flavor. I also sneak lavender into the crust by making a praline: grinding lavender buds and sugar together in the blender, then stirring that into hot water, which I pour onto a pie plate and freeze in the freezer. When I make the crumb crust, I add the lavender praline (ground up) in place of plain sugar.

But this was before the days of the Internet, and this time when I looked for a recipe, I found dozens. I chose the one that was the simplest (no-bake!) and it created such a silky, smooth dream of a cheesecake that half of the guests at the dinner wanted a copy of the recipe. (It was the women who wanted the recipe, not the men, which is odd as lavender is supposedly one of the scents that men find erotic. Maybe men just don’t make cheesecake.)

Here’s my version of the recipe:

1)      Smash 2 cups of shortbread cookies into crumbs. (You could really go for the lavender theme and use lavender shortbread. Or perhaps just toss some ground up lavender buds into the crumb mixture. Not too much! Subtle is the adjective for lavender.)

2)      Melt five tablespoons of butter and mix with the crumbs. Press into the bottom of a springform pan. Put in the refrigerator to chill while you make the filling.

3)      Crush three tablespoons of lavender. Pour two and a half tablespoons of boiling water over them. Let it steep for at least 15 minutes. Then strain out the lavender buds. This is your lavender infusion.

4)      Mix together ¾ cup of honey and one 8 ounce package of cream cheese that you’ve left out to soften. I used an electric beater. You could use a whisk, if you prefer.

5)      Add the lavender infusion, mixing carefully, not too much.

6)      Whip one and a quarter cups of heavy cream. Again I recommend an electric beater. This took a long time even with one.

7)      Fold the whipped cream into the honey/lavender/cream cheese mixture. Then pour it into the crust.

8)      Refrigerate for three to four hours before serving.

You can find the actual recipe here.

The next time I do it, I think I will add a second package of cream cheese as the filling layer was pretty thin, but no one complained about that. The texture was as smooth as silk and the lavender flavor pronounced but subtle.

I thought about garnishing it with lavender stalks dipped in simple syrup and set on tinfoil to dry. I think that would have worked out nicely but I didn’t try it. I also didn’t take a picture of the cheesecake so you’ll have to make do with the sunset.

If you want to serve it with wine, I’d suggest a Muscat (might be too sweet) or an ice wine, maybe a late-harvest Riesling. We tried a regular Riesling at the recommendation of my wine merchant and it didn’t really work, though it was a lovely Riesling (I like the ones that smell like gasoline and this one did).

Edible Flowers

When I decided to get to know the flowers in my neighborhood, I assigned myself different tasks for every month and my task for July was to eat flowers. I’m a little behind on this task, but I’m getting started now.

Flowers are most often used in sweet confections like desserts and drinks. In fact I own a great book, Cathy Barash’s book of Edible Flowers, which focuses on those two food groups. But I wanted to start with something simple. Raw flowers.

Remember when every green salad was garnished with flowers? Whatever happened to that trend? (I was happy to see chef Christopher Émé of Ortolan decorating his plates with flowers on a recent episode of Iron Chef.)

My first experiment involved making a salad and decorating it with fresh flowers from my garden: cornflowers, arugula flowers, chive flowers and some violas. Here’s a photograph I took of my first salad. Obviously, I have a lot to learn as a food stylist and food photographer. Still the flowers looked great. Unfortunately they didn’t add much flavor.

The arugula flowers were best. They had a bit of a kick to them, though not as much as arugula leaves. The chive flowers have a faint oniony flavor, which is odd in a flower, but they taste like paper. The same is true for cornflower petals which have absolutely no flavor as far as I can tell (one web site I visited said they tasted spicy, clove-like flavor—I wish! I notice that they’re an ingredient in many flavored teas. I wonder if they actually impart flavor or if they’re just there for the color). The violas supposedly taste like wintergreen but to me they just tasted green.

After wandering around the web, looking for articles on edible flowers, I realize I have many more flowers in my garden I can try. Borage is next. And the clove pinks. And the hollyhock blossoms. I want to snag a few of the last honeysuckle blossoms from my neighbor’s garden and try them in a fruit salad. I could sprinkle in some rose petals as well. And I’m eager to try calendula petals.

And that’s just the start of this edible flower adventure. In future posts, I’m going to make lavender-flavored desserts, candied flowers, rose honey almond brittle, and feature some vegetables that are actually flowers. Let me know what you make with flowers.