Pear, Geranium and Rose Jelly

I've wanted to try the combination of pears and geraniums for quite some time and finally got round to it this weekend as my geranium plants were finally looking healthy enough for me to liberate a few leaves. I don't often make jellies, because they are rather a fuss compared to jams but I felt that something with such delicate flavours as this would do very well being having a delicate texture too.

The European pear (Pyrus communis L.) belongs to the same taxonomic family as the rose (the Rosaceae family), so it's not surprising to know that the flavours of the two marry well together. Rose water is used in this recipe and it is absolutely vital that you buy a decent brand. There are a lot of different rose waters on the market and they contain various additives, preservatives and some of them have never even seen a rose, so do be careful! I use the one from The English Provender Company, which is one of the better ones I have found, though please post in the comments if you've found something that you prefer as I'm always interested in finding quality rose waters.

Rose water could be considered to be a by-product of the perfume industry in that it's more or less what is leftover after rose petals are steam-distilled to make rose oil ("attar of roses" in perfumery parlance). Steam-distillation is a wondrously archaic method that finds great use in perfumery and in the chemistry laboratory. The basic method is that the rose petals are crushed lightly so as to break some of the cell walls open and they are placed in a large vessel with a small amount of water. A stream of hot steam is bubbled through the water (which is gently heated at the same time) and all of the lovely fragrance molecules from the petals are liberated into the gas phase. The escaping vapours are rapidly cooled by passing them down a pipe that is cooled by a jacket of ice-cold water. This causes all of those liberated molecules to condense back into the liquid phase and they are then collected in a receiving vessel. Now, as is the case in most plants, some of the lovely smelly chemicals in roses are water soluble and some are not, so they separate out. In the receiving vessel of this kind of distillation, you would obtain a clear liquid (rose water) covered in a layer of a pale yellow oil (attar of roses). The attar is of most use to the perfume industry and the rose water is either used to make cheap scents or used in the food or cosmetic industries.

Rose water is usually obtained from the Damask rose (Rosa × damascena Mill.), which is a hybrid of the French rose (Rosa gallica L.) and the musk rose (Rosa moschata Herrm.) and it contains a HUGE number of chemicals that give it that wonderful evocative scent which we all know and love. These include nerol (also found in lemongrass and neroli oil), (-)-citronellol (also found in geraniums), 2-phenylethanol (found in geraniums and orange blossom), damaskones, benzaldehyde (found in almonds) and acetyl geraniol (found in geraniums and lemongrass), along with hundreds of others. You will notice that several of those compounds are also found in geraniums, which are the other ingredient of this jelly.

Now, "geranium" is a confusing term! There are a genus of plants - Geranium spp. L. - the cranesbills - but these are not what you want here! You need a member of the genus Pelargonium L'Hér. (the storksbills). Various members of this genus are scented - some smell of lemons and some of roses and some of spices. P. graveolens L'Hér. is probably your best bet and is the species that I used.

Pear, Geranium and Rose Jelly

450g pears (Conference or Cornice are equally good)
450mL water (To get a nice, clear jelly, filtered water is a good idea)
450g granulated white sugar
8 geranium leaves (These need to be nice, clean, whole leaves with no brown bits)
Juice and pips of a small lemon
2 tbsp rose water
2 tbsp honey (Clear honey seems to work best for this kind of recipe)

Firstly, chop the pears very roughly (leave the skin and the cores on/in) and throw them into a large saucepan with 4 of the geranium leaves, the lemon juice and pips, the honey and the water. Give the mixture a really good stir bring it to the boil and then pop a lid on and simmer it for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, assemble a jelly-bag over the sink and empty a kettle full of boiling water through it then put it over a large bowl (not metal) to cool. When the fruit is cooked, pour it into the jelly-bag and leave it overnight.

In the morning, measure out the strained juice and add 450g sugar to every 600mL juice, putting it into a Maslin pan. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, with plenty of stirring, then bring to the boil and keep it there, without stirring for 10 minutes, then check to see if you have a set yet. If not, keep boiling!

I bottled mine into one large jar, but you can do several smaller ones if you prefer. Whilst the jelly is boiling, dip the remaining geranium leaves into boiling water and put them into sterile, warmed preserving jars and add the rose water. If you're using multiple jars, use one leaf and 1/2 tbsp rose water per jar. Pour the jelly into the jar(s) as soon as it is ready and leave it to cool.

This is sublime with a nice, strong Cheddar whilst sitting out in the sun.