Violets

Violets are one of my favourite flowers at this time of year; tiny but so sweetly scented and lovely for flavouring jelly, roulades, vinegars etc. I have had great fun preserving some. It will be interesting to see whether the blue or white have the better flavour. But look at the blog below and just see the vinegar change colour after one day.

A Posy for Valentine's Day

I thought I would cheer myself up and think of fantastically fragrant flowers which can be picked and made into a posie for a friend and maybe placed in a little vase on a bedside table.

Or they could be lightly brushed with egg white and sugar and then used to make a sumptuously soft sweet roulade...rolled up with violet liqueur cream, some violet jelly maybe, and topped with lightly coated sugared violets...the real deal, no air miles, straight from the garden.

Actually I made a violet roulade ten days ago for Annie who came to visit, yes before the snow arrived. We devoured part of it and the remainder has been squirrelled away in the freezer.

Very soon, it will be time for a mass flowering of violets, blue and white...hoorah! Primroses as well; they're delicious too and gorgeous as a little bunch in a little milk jug....I can just smell them. Roll on spring!

Violet Jelly

I have so many apples in the orchard and chillies in my containers, and rosemary growing in the borders that I have been making all sorts of jellies...apple and chilly, apple and rosemary, apple chilly and rosemary. Chutney too, yes with chillies and apricots. But, oh dear, I still have lots of apples left, so today I thought I would try and make violet jelly using apple as the base then adding in some violet syrup which I bought from France. It had just reached the setting point when I remembered that I had seen some violets flowering in the garden (odd you might think, but lots of spring flowers like to flaunt themselves a little in autumn too) , so I went on a hunt to find them. I discovered about a dozen, nestling among their leaves, and was able to stir them into the jelly as it cooled. I thought I might freeze some of the extra apple juice and wait until more flowers appear in the spring. Don't know whether it will freeze well or not? Will the pectin content change?

Now violet jelly is great with scones or crumpets; so roll on the weekend!