The garden is in full bloom and I am having a ball filling the house with gorgeous flowers, every room has at least one vase full, the more I cut, the more they come back, its heaven. Now it is a standing joke in our house that I do love to eat flowers, My Hubby reckons that I will try anything once, but even I know to play safe and stick to the tried and tested safe ones.

At the moment we are inundated with roses, they are stunning and the smell is truly amazing, so what could be better than turning them into a fragrant summer jam, that is just perfect for filling a Victoria sponge with, or slathering onto scones, I can not think of anything nicer for a summers afternoon tea.

I have wanted to make rose petal jam since I was a little girl, but my Dad would of shot me if I had picked the heads off of his beloved Roses !!! I am not so precious about the flowers in my garden and purposely love to grow flowers that I know that I can bake with. I am hoping to make good use of the honeysuckle, day lilies, dahlia’s and snapdragons, that all grow in my garden.

So here it is, so simple to make, no thermometer required and just look at that stunning colour, its just like having turkish delight in a jar.

Buon appetito

1 litre roses (just fill a jug loosely with the petals)
340 g granulated sugar
340 g sugar with pectin
300 ml water
Juice of 1 lemon

Snip the petals from the flowers, leaving the bitter base behind, so that you have a bowlful of rose petals. Add the granulated sugar, stir well and leave to infuse for 24 hours. I put mine in my fermenting bucket and put the lid on, if using a bowl, cover with a cloth or cling film, you don’t want any bugs!

Put everything into a preserving pan, stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved and then turn the heat up and bring to a rolling boil.

Set the timer for 4 minutes and keep the jam boiling hard. When the four minutes are up, take the pan off the heat and leave the jam to cool for ten minutes before potting into small sterilised jars.

I removed the petals from the jam with a slotted spoon, this is purely my preference, you can just as easily leave them in.

This should make about 1 kg of jam.