everything's coming up roses

i think one of the things people most often ask me when i tell them about my preserves is 'yeah but what do you actually do with them?'. with the more obvious preserves like marmalade, the answer is simple, i eat them (and give jars to ed and friends i visit). with slightly more obscure preserves like my preserved lemons, or the rose preserves i made recently, the answer is that i cook with them. there's something satisfying in cooking with things you've made yourself, it has a kind of building-block feeling to it, like you can trace the finished product back further than you could if you'd simply bought the components. it can be traced even further back if you've grown or picked the ingredients yourself. it's totally satisfying to be so involved in the processes of the things you eat. it seems like the closer i get to the source of my food, the closer i want to be; it's a bit of a circular thing.

i don't know that i mentioned, when detailing the process of preserving my japanese rose petals and hips, that rose flavour is an obsession of mine. i drink rose tea, i put rose petals in my gin and juice, i stew white peaches with a few drops of rosewater all summer long, i wear rose lipbalm, i buy myself big bunches of tea roses in ice cream colours and bury my face in them every time i pass them. when ed and i were in barcelona i ate the world's biggest rose and pistachio ice cream, and it combined so many obsessions (rose flavour anything, ice cream, in particular pistachio flavour, serious sugar hits, and super bright colour schemes) that i didn't even notice ed taking the opportunity to sneak a photo of me like he usually does when i am distracted:


so yeah that is basically what we call a defining kirsty mitchell food moment, as captured by the most persistent paparazzo i know (who, incidentally doesn't like rose, which is brilliant cos it means more for me; i'd feel bad, but he probably feels the same way about bacon or something).

with an obsession with rose as huge as mine, it's no surprise that i already had ideas of what to make in mind when i was boiling up hips and petals to jar. well, less so with the hips, as never having actually tried rosehip syrup before, i had to gamble on what would work.

what i did with my rosehip syrup was make a gloriously fruity, sticky version of chelsea buns, using the recipe from the river cottage bread handbook, which is now a firm favourite. i filled them with dried cranberries, and used rosehip syrup instead of melted butter. i also glazed them with rosehip syrup reduced down with a little sugar. and here we have the result:

these were amazing. rosehip syrup tastes like red berries but has the kind of baked-apple tartness that works well with sticky, pillowy buns like these. i'd put in the cranberries initially as a kind of aesthetic thing, but flavour-wise i think they worked out better than currants or sultanas ever could. i did actually take some down on a impromptu visit to london, but they didn't get eaten before they staled, so there can't be a comment from my esteemed blogging partner on these until i make the next batch. which will probably happen very soon.

i had more of a clear cut idea about the rose petal jelly. what i wanted to do was make a nod to that summer culinary powerhouse, the victoria sponge, but with flavours that are a bit less done to death than strawberries and whipped cream (we already know that i think too much Great British Tradition is distinctly oppressive, and that strawberries are a pretty wimpy fruit). i had in my mind a vision of a raspberry and rose victoria sponge, something uncharacteristically delicate and ostentatious compared to my usual baking fare. so i did what i always do when i need to make a mental baking image a reality, and turned to nigella lawson. more specificallly, her victoria sponge recipe in how to be a domestic goddess. she gives methods for making it in a food processor and for making it 'by hand'. naturally i make mine by hand because i always feel like 'shortcutting' on baked goods is cheating somewhat, that and i love a good whisking session:

victoria sponge

225g unsalted butter, very soft
225g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
200g self-raising flour
25g cornflour
1 teaspoon baking powder (if using the processor method)
3-4 tablespoons milk

2 x 21cm sandwich tins, about 5cm deep, buttered.

preheat the oven to 180 degrees c/gas mark 4. if the tins are loose bottomed, you don't need to line them, otherwise, do.

i always make this basic sponge cake in the food processor, which involves putting in all the ingredients except the milk and processing till you've got a smooth batter. then pulse, pouring the milk gradually through the funnel till your cake mixture's a soft dropping consistency. because i'm clumsy, i habitually make a too-runny mix, but it doesn't seem to matter. likewise, if your ingredeints are too cold you may end up with a batter that looks curdled: this doesn't seem to make a difference to the baking either (though it might get in the way of impressive rising).

if you want to make this the traditional way, cream the butter and sugar, add the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time, followed by a spoonful of flour. fold in the rest of the flour and the cornflour, adding no baking powder, and when all's incorporated, add a little milk as you need.

pour and scrape the batter into your tins and bake for about 25 minutes, until the cakes are beginning to come away at the edges, are springy to the touch, and a skewer comes out clean. leave the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for ten minutes, then turn out to cool completely.

okay, so that's your sponge recipe. to assemble my cake, i whipped about 150ml cream until it was at a soft-fold stage rather than a stiff peak stage. i spread one half of the cake with my rose petal jelly, scattered over about 200g raspberries, then spread the cream gently over the top, before adding the other layer of the cake. and i got something that looked a little like this:


exactly how i'd envisaged it. i had to take a load down to work cos i knew there was no way we could finish it all at casa mitchell, despite the best will in the world, seeing as this cake was absolutely massive. it was really, really good, and i think the only thing i would change is to maybe add another layer of rose petal jelly, but that might be due to my floral fanaticism more than anything else. i am already keeping my eyes peeled for more japanese roses, because i've got about a million more plans to bake with this lovely stuff, and only a jar and a half left.

i'm headed down to london this weekend, but before i go i will hopefully have time to tell you about my victory (that's right, you heard me) at iron cupcake on monday, so do stay tuned for more kitchen tinkering that resulted in seriously good cake.