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Rose Drops
Put a pound of loaf sugar into a saucepan with two ounces of water. Stir it over a slow fire till it is dissolved, and add a few drops of essence of rose, and three or four drops of cochineal. When the syrup is on the point of simmering, take it from the fire, stir it a few minutes longer, and drop it in small rounds upon an oiled slab or dish. Let the drops cool, then remove them with the point of a knife. Or, dry half an ounce of red rose-leaves, pound them to powder, and sift carefully. Mix with them one pound of finely-powdered sugar, and add as much strained lemon-juice as will make a stiff paste. Stir this mixture over a slow fire till it is scalding hot, then drop it in small rounds upon an oiled dish, and set them in a warm place for twenty-four hours.
Two versions of the same sweet: a boiled sugar drop tinted and scented, and an older uncooked rose-petal paste. Both are simple, but both depend on getting the sugar to set opaque rather than sticky.
- The hinge: stir to grain itA pound of sugar to two ounces of water is a very heavy syrup, and the stirring after it comes off the heat is not idle work — it seeds crystallisation so the drops set firm and opaque, like a fondant. Stop stirring too soon and you get sticky pools that never harden; the mixture should turn cloudy and thicken visibly before you begin dropping.
- Loaf sugarSold as a hard cone that was broken and crushed at home. It was simply refined cane sugar; ordinary granulated sugar is the direct replacement.
- Two ounces of waterWeight, not fluid measure, though for water they coincide closely enough — about 1/4 cup. That is barely enough to wet the sugar, which is intentional.
- Essence of roseA concentrated alcoholic extract, far stronger than rose water. If you have only rose water you will need considerably more of it, which will upset the sugar-to-liquid balance; rose extract or a food-grade rose oil diluted in a little alcohol is closer to the original.
- CochinealCarmine, made from the dried bodies of scale insects, and still sold as a red food colouring. Three or four drops of a period tincture were meant to give no more than a pink tint; modern carmine and synthetic reds may well be stronger, so add one drop at a time.
- "Red rose-leaves"Period usage for petals, not foliage. Use petals from unsprayed roses, dried until brittle, then ground and sieved — the powder must be very fine or the paste will be gritty.
- Oiled slabA marble or slate confectioner's slab, wiped with a neutral oil. A cold baking sheet, a silicone mat or lightly oiled parchment does the same job; chilling it first helps the drops set quickly enough to hold their round shape.
- Drying the petal pasteTwenty-four hours in a "warm place" would have meant somewhere like the plate rack or the top of the range. An oven at its lowest setting with the door ajar, or a dehydrator at around 100-110F, will do it in a few hours; the drops should be dry to the touch and lift cleanly.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; a pound of sugar makes a large batch of small drops. They keep several weeks in a tin between layers of parchment, away from damp.
Rose was among the characteristic sweet flavourings of English confectionery well before vanilla became common, and small dropped sugar sweets of this kind belong to a tradition often traced to the "sugar plate" and comfit work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when banqueting-stuff was made in still-rooms by the women of the house as well as bought from confectioners. The second method here, pounding dried petals into powdered sugar and binding with lemon juice, is the older of the two and needs no thermometer or boiling skill — a technique documented in early modern sources and surviving into a Victorian dictionary. The first method reflects the nineteenth century's cheap refined sugar and its commercial flavour trade: bottled essence of rose and tincture of cochineal, both available from any chemist, doing work that once required a garden and a mortar. Cochineal itself, imported from Mexico and Central America since the Spanish conquest, was the standard red for food and drink throughout the period.