Lavender and Rose Sugars

    Hey, Sugar! (That is a standard greeting around my house.) I know it sounds rather romantic to have rose petal sugar, or perhaps lavender. Although it sounds fancy, it is dead simple. For both you need dried flowers and I have heard that you can buy these online.  If you grow lavender, it's as easy as picking the stems with nice open flowers and wrapping a twist-tie around the bundle. Make a hook on the end and hang it somewhere out of direct sun.

     In two weeks or so the lavender will be dried. You can tell by pinching the head- if the tiny florets are brittle and shed off, then the flowers are dry. If you will be wanting it for cooking then it is best to put the flowers in a sealed jar in the cupboard. You don't want exposure to light and air to degrade the oils, then it wouldn't be good to use. You can steep these flowers and stems in cream for pannacotta and custards, or boil it to flavor a Simple Syrup. If you don't cook with all of them, you can wrap some with ribbon to freshen a room, or use some of the stems to decorate a gift. These are particularly lovely when tucked into a length of ripped linen used as a ribbon.

     Now is also when you can grind it for flavored sugar.  Strip the heads off of a handful of stems. Say, about 3 tbsp. Top this with 1/2 cup white sugar in a food processor. Whiz it up till the flowers are ground into the sugar. I like to see flowers bits, but not so big that if I used it on shortbread  it would look like I was dumping a bush on it. Then add another 1/2 cup and just blend it all together. This is one of those things that is totally up to your judgement. Add more sugar for a less potent concoction, or add in more lavender until you have what looks like a nice composition to you. Put this in sealed jars to maintain potency. You should be able to smell lavender when you open the lid.

florets

ground into sugar

      Rose sugar is the same idea. You can buy dried petals or use nice dark pink and red from your yard. Light colored ones dry to a color that isn't appealing when ground up. Whether you buy or pick, only use roses that haven't been chemically treated. If you spray something that going to kill a bug dead or change the growth habits of a plant you don't want to eat it ! Either dry the fresh petals in a dehydrator, or scatter them on a baking rack and let nature take its course. Don't use any that have gone parchment colored, and if any edges do this snip them off with scissors. Use the same method for combining with sugar as with the lavender. I wrote in Rose Petal Syrup about rose sugar and I will reiterate: these sugars are lovely on cookies, sprinkled over whipped cream, baked into a crust atop cakes, and cooked into delicately flavored items. I just wouldn't use them in teas or drinks; it's too much like drinking the dried leaves of a broken tea bag. Nothing much romantic about that!

Rose Petal Sugar

     These are lovely little gifts that cost next to nothing if you grow the flowers and reuse a jar you already have. Just a little bit of something special to brighten up an ordinary day. Doesn't that sound sweet, Sugar?

"A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and she takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her." Helen Rowland