Finding Rose Water is difficult, so I decided to make my own. Make sure that your rose petals are organic and not treated with pesticides or fertilisers.

I knew it would get used, as it was needed for the Persian Love Cake, I also had plans for making Turkish Delight.

Let’s talk Roses!

May is a wonderful time of year for roses here in Spain. The roundabouts and walkways are planted with hundreds of them, they just flourish for months and are a joy to see.

When the heat arrive however, they seem to go dormant. Later in the year, as the summer heat subsides, we find we get another flourish of flowers, often equally as good as the Spring showing!

Gardening in Spain is very different to back in the UK. When we first arrived, we wanted a lawn! That idea soon went out of the window when we realised how much water it would need. Also, the soft lush grass we had envisioned was not to be! Instead it was a tough almost sword like grass and not really attractive.

Anyway! Back to roses. There are many different varieties available, but for the rose water, they had to be red. It was interesting actually, how quickly after adding them to the pan, that they changed colour. One minute they were a vibrant red, then a lilac and finally hardly any colour at all.

Getting down to it!

It was difficult tearing up those precious rose petals, but it had to be done. It took just minutes before I had enough for the pan.

After adding the distilled water and bringing it to the boil, I just left it to simmer gently. The perfume was incredible and filled the house. Our water here is not particularly good. In fact we drink bottled water. On this occasion though, after researching all about Rose Water, it was suggested distilled was best, so that was what I used.

You can follow Cooks In Spain on Face Book. There is also a fabulous Cooks In Spain FB group, but you do need to live in Spain to be allowed to join. The group has been running for 2 years and is a huge success, so if you do live in Spain search it out.