One of the things Kentucky does best is roses.  The edges of our forest are lined with wild roses climbing up into the lower branches of the trees, and our garden roses flourish year after year.  Our wild rose jelly gives you a bit of southern summer to keep all year long. It has a warm almost fruity flavor, and a beautiful natural color.

This jelly was made with wild roses and garden roses.  Picking wild roses turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined.  Their petals cling tightly to the flowers unlike the larger roses in our garden, but after seven ticks and several prickled fingers I had enough petals to try out this new jelly.

Because jelly on bread is just too boring I tried this one out on my Great Grandmother’s press cookies.  I did half lavender and half rose and they turned out excellently.  I actually preferred them to a fruit filled press cookie.