Valentine’s Day is the most popular holiday that’s associated with love and romance here in the USA. Heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, teddy bears, Valentine’s Day cards and roses have become staples for gifts exchanged on this day. Love is in the air with Valentine’s Day hastily approaching. This month, we’re diving into how ROSES – that symbol of love – are currently being used in the culinary field.
In 2010, an estimated 198 million roses were produced for the high demand of the Valentine’s Day holiday. Were all of those roses used just to live in a vase for a week or two? Maybe not, as the growing trend of “rose-infused” recipes continues to rise.
In case you did not already know, rose petals are in fact edible, and are used in a wide variety of foods and drinks.
A lot of Persian and Turkish cuisines call for the use of rose water as ingredient (which is flavored water that is made from steeping rose petals in water). This cooking technique is known as “infusing” – the extraction of flavor from herbs and spices by steeping it in hot liquid and straining to remove the solid matter. Rose water is now being used in a lot of “rose-infused” recipes that offer these dishes with the distinctive Valentine flavors of rose petals.
If you are interested in experimenting and “spicing” up one of your dishes, consider using rose water the next time a recipe you are working on calls for ingredients like vanilla, vanilla extract, orange flower water and almond extract. Rose water goes great with a lot of milk-based foods. (You may even have had rose-infused foods without even knowing it, as a lot of recipes include it in jams, marmalade, soups, teas, and baked goods like cupcakes, puddings, scones, and much more.)
We hand-picked some of our favorite rose-infused recipes that we plan on making this Valentine’s Day – because everyone knows the quickest way to someone’s heart is through food!
– Rose-Infused Red Velvet Cake Pops
If you have ever considered working in a food-related industry, consider taking your skills to the next level with the career training culinary program at Dorsey Schools. This program is designed to prepare you for work in both the public and private sectors of professional food serving facilities. To learn more about the Culinary Arts Program at Dorsey Schools in Michigan, visit our website here.
For more information about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the programs, and other important information, please visit our website at https://www.dorsey.edu/disclosures.php.
