last of the rose petals

I thought I had seen the last of my beautiful fragrant roses but after thoroughly dead heading the bush it has given me three last flowers.

 I picked them and combined them with lavender flowers and the ubiquitous sugar syrup about one pint of water to half a pint in volume of sugar. I added lemon zest and 3 cardomum pods.

After infusing the flower petals over night I strained the mixture and topped it up with about half a pint of cold earl grey from the teapot. The tea changed the colour quite dramatically . It lost all the mauve blue shades and became a distinct tea colour. More terracotta than a cup of earl grey almost english breakfast.

The resulting sorbet was a few shades paler and had a wonderful flavour . I say had because we have eaten all of it and some people say it was the best yet although the verveine is still a favourite memory. Unfortunately unless the rose has another fling we will have to wait for next year for that particular combination.