A recipe for rose cupcakes that truly captures the taste of rose, this most delightful of summer flowers. The cakes are lightly chocolatey and flavoured with rose sugar and rosewater, the buttercream is made with homemade rose syrup and the tops are decorated with crystallised rose petals. The post includes a recipe for rosehip syrup.
Roses are a universal favourite, so beautiful and diverse in form and colour and often so sweetly scented. My grandfather was a keen rose grower and had the best rose garden I’ve ever seen. Perhaps I’m a little biased here, but it was a long time ago that I last saw it and the memory just gets better and better.
Anyway, because I loved my grandfather, roses hold a very special place in my heart and, I have to say, in my stomach too. So when it was my turn to set a theme for We Should Cocoa, I chose roses. Do take a look at all the creative chocolate and rose recipes this resulted in.
Having set the rose challenge, I really wanted to try and use roses to their full extent. As usual I wasn’t sure I’d have time to make what I had in mind. The plum and rose traybake I made as a fall back was delicious, but it only contained rosewater.
Chocolate And Rose Cupcakes
I’d set my heart on some ultra rosy cupcakes using rose in four different ways: rose sugar, rosewater, rosehip syrup and crystallised roses. So time be hanged, this is what I went for. To complete the theme, I discovered some lovely rose paper cases hiding in the cupboard.
Making these chocolate and rose cupcakes was a day long process. This is mostly because I made rosehip syrup and crystallised rose petals and both of these always takes a bit of time and partly because I had a few mishaps along the way.
Despite the various disappointments and problems encountered along the way, these cupcakes are truly delicious – chocolatey and definitely rosy. The cakes are light and moist with both the chocolate and rose flavours nicely balanced.
They have a fantastic texture with a particularly smooth mouth feel. The creme fraîche topping carried the fragrance of the rosehip syrup nicely. Perfect cupcakes for summer and they keep well too.
Crystallised Rose Petals
First thing in the morning I picked the one and only rose bloom in the garden, which had fortuitously opened at just the right time. It’s a lovely perfumed red rose and I now use it to make my rose syrup. At the time of making these chocolate rose cupcakes I hadn’t got as far as experimenting with rose syrup. If I had, I’d have used that instead of the rosehip syrup.
Ideally you’d leave the sugared petals to dry for at least twenty four hours, but I had to use mine on the same day. I just crossed fingers and hoped for the best. And although not completely crisp, they were still good.
I have a more detailed post on how to crystallise edible flowers if you’d like to have a go. It includes a video.
Top Tip
To avoid waste, paint the rose petals with a little of the egg white from one of the eggs needed for the cake batter. And use any sugar, leftover from dipping, to make the rose sugar.
Rosehip Syrup
I made a big batch of rosehip syrup with one kilo of rose hips that we’d harvested last year. They’ve been taking up room in the freezer ever since. Now I’d use rose syrup for this recipe rather than rosehip, which I’d keep for its medicinal properties. I’ve included the recipe for you here though as it’s a really useful one.
The syrup was rather disappointing in colour but although fairly sweet, it had a lovely fragrant flavour. The last time I made it I’m sure it was orange rather than brown and it I’m pretty sure it wasn’t so sweet. However, the upside to this, is that it should last well and hopefully keep all those autumnal coughs and colds at bay.
- Simmer 1 kilo of rosehips in 1.5 litres of water for a good half hour, mashing the fruit as it cooks.
- Strain through a muslin cloth and leave to drip for at about eight hours or overnight.
- Simmer the resulting juice with 500g unrefined granulated sugar for about half an hour until lightly syrupy.
- Pour into three sterilised glass bottles and seal. Head over to my post on how to sterilise glass bottles and jars if you need help with this.
Rose Sugar
Although the dried rose petals I’d made a while back had lost their scent by the time I used them, I was hoping for a nice pink sugar. But as you can see from the picture, that didn’t really happen. I’ll know for future reference that more petals are needed.
I now have a post on how to dry rose petals. If you head on over you’ll see I now make rose sugar which has a little more colour.
Crème Fraîche Cultured Butter
The main thing that went awry was the crème fraîche buttercream I’d envisaged. I thought a nice tang would bring a bit of freshness to the cakes and I had a jar of my homemade crème fraîche in the fridge. How wrong I was.
I creamed some butter and sugar together. All well and good, then I added some rosehip syrup and rather a lot of crème fraîche. Big mistake. This didn’t give me the desired effect at all. Not surprisingly it split.
Waste not want not and all that. I ended up making sweetened cultured butter and a load of sweet buttermilk. It was interesting, nice even, but not what I’d intended. The result of this little endeavour was that I had to make another batch of rose buttercream, one that was going to work this time.
Other Rose Recipes You Might Like
As well as the chocolate and rose recipe round up post I have for the We Should Cocoa challenge, I have masses of non chocolate rose recipes on the blog too. For the full list, click on this link for rose recipes. Otherwise, here are just a few highlights.
- Maamoul: date & walnut stuffed cookies
- Raspberry & rose curd
- Raspberry rose friands
- Rhubarb honey cakes with rose
- Rose cardamom brownies
- Rose meringues
Keep In Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these chocolate rose cupcakes, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more cupcake recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Rose Cupcakes. PIN IT.
Chocolate Rose Cupcakes – The Recipe
Chocolate And Rose Cupcakes
Ingredients
Crystallised Rose Petals
- 1 rose perfumed but unsprayed
- egg white (use a little of the egg whites from the eggs for the cake batter)
- caster sugar
Rose Sugar
- 125 g granulated sugar
- 1 handful dried rose petals scented but unsprayed
Chocolate Rose Cakes
- 125 g unsalted butter softened
- 100 g milk chocolate (I used Green & Blacks 37%)
- 125 g rose sugar
- 2 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
- 150 g flour (I used half wholemeal and half plain unbleached),
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) (baking soda)
- 2 tbsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt
- 1 tbsp rose water
Rose Buttercream
- 85 g unsalted butter softened
- 100 g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp rose syrup (I used rosehip syrup)
Instructions
Crystallised Rose Petals
- Paint the petals with egg white then dip them in a small bowl of caster sugar. To avoid waste, paint the rose petals with a little of the egg white from one of the eggs needed for the cake batter. And use any remaining sugar for the rose sugar.1 rose, egg white, caster sugar
- Put on a rack to dry and leave in a warm airy place for as long as possible, preferably for at least twenty four hours.
Rose Sugar
- Make the rose sugar. In a coffee grinder or blender, blitz the sugar with a handful of dried red scented roses.125 g granulated sugar, 1 handful dried rose petals
Chocolate Rose Cakes
- In a large pan, melt the butter with the chocolate (G&B) over a gentle heat.125 g unsalted butter, 100 g milk chocolate
- Turn off the heat and stir in the rose sugar.125 g rose sugar
- Beat in the eggs, one by one.2 large eggs
- Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and fold into the eggs.150 g flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 pinch bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- Gently stir in the yoghurt and rosewater.2 tbsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt, 1 tbsp rose water
- Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases and divide the batter between them. Bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for 20 minutes or until risen and firm to the touch..
- Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Rose Buttercream
- Cream the butter with the icing sugar until light and fluffy.85 g unsalted butter, 100 g icing sugar
- Beat in 1 tbsp of rose or rosehip syrup.1 tbsp rose syrup
- Spread over the cooled cakes with a palette knife, or use a piping bag.
- Sprinkle with a little pink sugar, if liked.
- Top with the crystallised rose petals.
Anaiah says
These chocolate and rose cupcakes just scream summer! It’s such a beautiful and creative combination. I love it!
Choclette says
Thank you Anaiah. For me early summer is all about roses.
nancy says
tasty and delicate recipe!
Maya Russell says
I bet these taste lovely. Might try making rosehip syrup one day, looks easy.
Tracy K Nixon says
These are so pretty and sound yummy too. It is my mum’s birthday shortly and I think these would be lovely to bake!
Maya Russell says
Interesting post. I’ll be able to make rose sugar or surup now.
Kamagra UK says
Wow, nice post,there are many person searching about that now they will find enough resources by your post
Carla Sento says
I would never have thought of using flowers in cupcake recipes, but whilst doing my regular hunt about on the web for interesting new ideas, I’ve come across this. I can’t wait to give it a go!
I also love your very detailed method – I’m seeing all too many recipes without enough detail and therefore giving reason for lots of errors. Thank you for being so thorough!
Choclette says
Thank you Nic
Nic@Daydreamaboutfood says
these look brilliant. Love the combinations of the different types of roses.
Choclette says
Suelle – good point. I’m sure rosehip syrup used to be available in chemists many years ago, but I would be completely clueless as to where to get it now.
A Trifle Rushed – thank you. I think it had something to do with the fact that holidays were fast approaching.
Kath – thank you. Granddad always brought a rose when he visited us in Cornwall, but my mother didn’t quite have his knack and roses generally don’t fair well down here anyway.
Dom – the good news about rosehip syrup is it’s meant to be good for you, so plenty of licence there 😉
Please do Not Feed the Animals – heady indeed, now why didn’t I think to put some rose liqueur in there too :-S
Karen – thank you. Setting the challenge is a good excuse to roll out the carpet and make something a bit more unusual.
Janice – thank you. Considering the rush I was in, the petals didn’t look too bad in the end.
BVG – I can see that it might be a bit of an acquired taste, but really it is one of the nicer health foods 😉
Hanna – thank you. I will get around to doing the round-up soon, I promise!
Chele – luckily for me, it was an experiment that worked.
C – thank you. I’ll go with beautiful 🙂
Peasoup – let me know how your cupcakes turn out if you get around to making them.
Ananda – you’re welcome.
Phil – a teaspoon of this in the late autumn and winter is very welcome as it a slug in some hot water too.
Baking Addict – it would be such fun to be able to try each other’s bakes.
Gloria – thank you.
Johanna – this one did take a bit of thought. My grandad used to make all sorts of hedgerow wines but would never have thought of having them in cakes – I think he’d be delighted.
Johanna GGG says
I am impressed at all your forward planning – you really had to get your roses lined up to get this done – and they sound wonderful – am sure your grandfather would have been interested to see how his garden inspires your cooking
Gloria says
Look georgeous!! gloria
Baking Addict says
Wow amazing effort! They look and sound fantastic, wish I could have one to try! Thanks again for a fantastic challenge.
Phil in the Kitchen says
That’s a serious amount of rosiness. Great sounding cakes. I’ve never made rosehip syrup but I was recently chastised by a fellow forager for ignoring a fine crop of rosehips, so I think I may try.
Ananda Rajashekar says
sugar petal rose is pretty thanks for the tip had been wanting to try for long time
PeaSoup says
I’m crazy about anything rose flavoured – you’ve just given me a great idea for some vegan rose water cupcakes. Thank you!
C says
They do look beautiful – worth all of the effort you obviously made with them! Glad you enjoyed them!
Chele says
Gosh! You really did push the boat out on this one, I didn’t realise there were so many ways to use rose in cupcakes! You have truly put my effort to shame! LOVE your cupcakes, they look superb and I can imagine they must have tasted pretty darn good too ;0)
Hanna says
Wow! I love how much rose you’ve managed to incorporate in beautiful looking cupcakes! Cant wait to see the round up..!
Brownieville Girl says
I made rosehip syrup last year (nobody liked it here) I neven even thought to use it for this challenge – doohh!!!!!!
Well done for putting so much work into these cupcakes – delighted they turned out so well. I particularly love the rose sugar, it looks so pretty.
Janice says
Wow, you put me to shame with your homemade rosehip syrup! The frosted rose petals look lovely.
Karen S Booth says
FABULOUS! And what a lot of effort you put into the challenge too…..I love anything with roses in it, on the cooking front, as well as looking at them in the garden too! The cupcakes look divine darlink!!
Karen ~ Lavender and Lovage
Please Do Not Feed The Animals. says
Gorgeous!
Mmmm – I’ll bet they were quite heady.
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
they look so pretty and what a quadruple combo of rose marvellousness! I’ve not used rosehip before so it’s intriguing to see and learn how to make it. Lovely stuff!
Kath says
They look fantastic! I love the memories of your grandfather’s garden. I have been thinking about making rosehip syrup now you have inspired me some more. Sorry to have missed this challenge this month. Will try to be on the ball for next time.
A Trifle Rushed says
What truly rosy cupcakes, I am so impressed at all your hard work…. Scrumptious!
Suelle says
Well done for the effort put in. The results look well worth it! Lucky you had the frozen hips – it seems impossible to buy rosehip syrup anywhere!