Rose Petal Chia Jam

How’s it going, guys? Two kids later, I’ve only gotten worse at managing my time and my to-do list now and it’s a miracle I’m posting this recipe. Thanks to my Amma and Appa who are here to help us settle into a routine, I have a few minutes to spare and I thought I’ll quickly post the recipe of a jam I made yesterday.

While I was ordering a bunch of stuff from the Indian grocery store a couple of weeks back, I saw dried rose petals listed and got carried away and ordered quite a bit of it totally forgetting that I’d need fresh rose petals for making gulkand and not dried ones. Blaming this one on my mommy brain.

Lucky for me, the rose petals turned out to be really fragrant and of great quality.

Anyway, I did a little bit of a google search and found a lot of rose jam recipes that called for dried rose petals. However, I couldn’t get on board with the amount of sugar used in these recipes and decided to go ahead with my own measurements instead. I also threw in chia seeds to make it more jelly-ish and I’m absolutely in love with the result.

So here’s my recipe for a rose petal jam that you can eat as is, add to milk, your cereal/oatmeal/chia pudding, fill cupcakes with, top your ice cream with or use on toasts, the possibilities are endless.

With minimal ingredients and a fairly quick process, this recipe is a must try. Here’s what you need:

• 1.5 cup dried rose petals
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (add more or less as per your preference)
• 2 cups water
• 2T lemon juice
• 1T chia seeds

Method:

1. Bring 1.5 cups of water to a boil. In the meantime, dry roast the rose petals for a couple of minutes until crunchy. Be careful not to let them burn.
2. Transfer roasted petals to a wide bowl and pour the boiling water over it, cover and let steep for one hour.
3. In a wide vessel, add the sugar to the remaining water, mix in the lemon juice and bring it to a boil and then simmer until the water is halved and it reaches a thick/ one string consistency.
4. Once thick enough, transfer the soaked rose petals, chia seeds, gently stir and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Let it cool down completely before transferring to a clean, dry jar.
6. The jam will thicken as it cools down.

Adding a splash of rose water would make this more fragrant, unfortunately I ran out of it and hence had to skip it.

You could also pulse the petals before making the jam if you’d like that better.

Pro Tip: I tried this jam with my banana apple muffins and it was top stuff! 😉

Try and tell me how you like it?