Wild rose Turkish delight

Makes 64 pieces Desserts and puddings

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Method

Rinse the rose petals to remove any insects that may be hiding among the petals. Cut out a square of muslin, pile the petals in the middle and tie up into a giant ‘teabag’ with some string, leaving a long end of string to hook the bag out of the hot mixture later. Cut off any excess muslin, as it will just get in the way.

Put the granulated sugar, lemon juice and 300ml of water in a large saucepan or preserving pan and heat gently until the sugar has just dissolved, then remove from the heat and leave to cool for at least 5 minutes.

Soak the gelatine in cold water for about 5 minutes to soften. In a separate bowl, mix the cornflour with 100ml of water until smooth.

Squeeze out the excess water from the gelatine leaves one by one and whisk them into the lemon syrup, until completely dissolved. Then pour in the cornflour mixture and stir thoroughly. Put the pan over a medium heat and add the bag of rose petals. Don’t worry that it seems huge; it will shrink dramatically as the petals get hot. Bring the mixture to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring frequently and squishing the bag from time to time to make sure you extract maximum flavour. As the cornflour cooks, the mixture will become a little less opaque, and pretty thick, so make sure you keep stirring.

Pull out the bag of rose petals and leave everything to cool for 10 minutes. Wearing rubber gloves, squeeze out as much of the rosy residue as possible from the muslin bag and add it back into the pan. Add the pistachio nuts, if using, and stir. Leave to cool slightly, until the pistachios remain in suspension, rather than rising to the top.

Line the square cake tin with baking parchment and pour in the Turkish delight. Leave to cool, uncovered. When cold, put in the fridge overnight.

The next day, cut the Turkish delight into squares and leave them to dry out on a wire rack for at least 12 hours. It is very important that the squares are utterly dry, otherwise they will partially absorb the dusting powder and become damp, sticky and unattractive.

To dust, mix the cornflour and icing sugar together and toss the dry squares in the mixture to coat evenly. Store in jars or gift boxes lined with baking parchment. They will keep for up to a month.