Rose syrup

I’ve been planning to try out a cake with a rose syrup for sometime, and I thought I had the perfect sponge recipe to try it with. An almond and yoghurt based sponge, which seemed to have the middle eastern connotations that matched the rose water I planned to use.

Unfortunatley, despite it looking beautiful, the sponge was just too heavy.  I’ll try it again with a lighter one – probably the one I base the Hudson’s Lemon Drizzle Cake on, as I know it works really well.

The syrup was a great success though, so I  thought I’d include the recipe here.  Last night I tried a splash of it topped up with sparking water and ice; I loved it, but my parter, who tells me “rose isn’t a flavour, it’s a flower” isn’t so keen!

The syrup was made up a as I went along, so the quantities here are rough.

Ingredients

150ml water
175g sugar
juice of 1 lemon
8 cardamom pods
1 tsp rose water
dried rose petals
sprig of lemon verbena leaves (or you could use lemon zest)

Crush the cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar and place them in a pan with the sugar and water.  Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved, stir occasionally to help it along. Add the verbena leaves and the rose petals and leave on a low heat (no bubbles) for 5 minutes for the flavours to infuse. Take off the heat and leave to cool for 5 minutes.  Strain to remove the cardamom, petals and leaves (I use a paper coffee filter in a funnel for this). Add the lemon juice and rose water to taste – I was aiming for something that reminded me of turkish delight.

Store in a jar or glass bottle in the fridge, sterilise the bottle if you want to keep it for some time.

Use to flavour drinks, drizzle over ice cream, moisten cakes, etc.

I made holes in the two sponges with a skewer and drizzled the syrup over. I then sandwiched them together with turkish rose jam.  It’s topped with a simple lemon icing (sieved icing sugar + lemon juice), a sprinkling of rose petals and a couple of lemon verbena leaves.

Lemon, Ginger & Mint cordial

This is the recipe that the most people have asked me for, so it seems like a good place to start.  We first made it for a grill (barbeque) in the park, and I’ve been making it in increasing quantities, and trying out variations  ever since.

Add ice, sparking water and a sprig of mint for a great non-alcoholic summer drink.  – add a splash of vodka or gin if you want to give it a kick.

The recipe makes about 250ml of cordial – I tend to quadruple the quantities because it keeps so well in the fridge.

Ingredients

160g sugar
55g root ginger (unpeeled, grated)
5 sprigs of mint (torn)
150ml lemon juice (about 4 lemons)

• Put the sugar and mint in a pan with 12oml water and bring to the boil.
• Turn the temperature down (so there are no bubbles) and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add the ginger and leave it for another 5 minutes.
• Turn off the heat and leave the mixture to cool.
• Once cool add the lemon juice and decant into a sealable bottle.
• Store in the fridge.

Dilute to taste – about 1 part cordial to 5 parts water usually works.

I’m  not sure how long it keeps, it never stays around long enough to find out.  We did leave some in the fridge when we were on holiday, so I’m certain it will last at least a month, probably longer if you sterilise the bottles.

Variations:
So far I’ve only tried Lime and Mint, leaving out the ginger.  I wasn’t convinced to start with, but it seemed to improve with age.

Since trying this out I’ve looked for other cordial recipes and bookmarked quite a few on Delicious (tag: cordial).  I’ll let you know if/as/when I try them.

Leftovers:
I hate waste, so wherever possible I try to use up anything unused in other recipes.  This recipe used a lot of lemons, so I made a batch of Crystallised Lemon Peel with the leftover peel.