Rosehip Syrup

When the hips start to colour on the bushes, and when there are enough, I make syrup. I’ll make several litres over the course of a few months because every last drop will be used.

Rosehip syrup is an amazing taste, add it to fizz for an instant cocktail, or cakes or cake-fillings. Use it on pancakes and drop scones, add it to herbal tea, use it as a cough syrup, or as a topping on ice-cream or poached fruit. As part of a salad dressing, to soak dried fruit before cooking in a couscous. I use it a lot.

Word of warning – I don’t use enough sugar for this to be a proper syrup – it won’t keep more than a few weeks in the fridge. I freeze it in batches then pour into sterile 250ml Kilner jars. Each jar is used inside a week.

Prep: 20min Cook: 10min Prep: 15min

This method is what you could call contingent – it depends on the amount of rosehips you’ve got.

1. Start by washing the rosehips, weigh them, then blitz them in enough water to make a thick soup.
2. Put them in a big pot and warm them to 60c, add 1/2tsp cinnamon and a pinch of fresh nutmeg per kg rosehips steeping them for 8min.
3. Drain and reserve the juice, add about 1/2 as much water again and steep the rosehips for another 8min at 60c.
4. Drain all the juice through muslin, and weight the juice. Divide this number by 7 then multiply by 3 – add that much sugar. I use golden sugar for a little bit of taste.
5. Gently warm the liquid until the sugar dissolves, then bottle or freeze.

Rosehips are a great source of vitamin C. But heating denatures it (it oxidises and becomes inactive), so lower temperatures help keep some of the vitamin C alive. If you steep at lower temperatures you keep even more, and you can even steep overnight at room temperature (make sure the bowl was sterilised beforehand. But the lower temperature and the lower sugar content means this is not pasteurised and will not act as a preserve (like jam). So be careful to use it quickly.

If you want a proper preserve then up the sugar content – at least 50:50 so equal weight of sugar to liquid. Adding a little citric acid will also help. But that’s way too sweet for me. I’d rather freeze it and use it quickly.