I love rosehips. I love the way they look on rose shrubs and how they remain bright points of color as the gray of winter approaches. I love how they feed wildlife when it’s cold. I love the nutritional and healthful gifts they offer. And I particularly love how those tart little hips are perfect for jellies, jams, and syrups. I don’t always have time in the fall to harvest and clean fresh hips, so I am always grateful for dried rosehips when winter finally arrives and I can slow down and do some cold weather nesting. Now I have the time to pull luscious dried rosehips from my apothecary closet to make rosehip jelly for my family. However, said family firmly believes that rosehip jelly season also means cookie season, because homemade jellies and jams are the best for thumbprint and/or frosted sugar cookies.
What are Rosehips?
Rosehips—which is also often spelled as two words: rose hips—are the fruits of roses (also called the rose haw or hep). All varieties of roses produce hips, but the Rosa rugosa varieties like Rosa canina and Rosa rubiginosa tend to have larger hips and more of them, so those are the ones that are most often collected for sale and drying. Rose blossoms that are not picked from a plant will finish their flowering cycle and develop a very firm, round or oblong, red or orange hip that appears as the flowers drop off. The hips then develop through the summer into the autumn.
The hip contains rose seeds, but also a plethora of hairs that are incredibly irritating to the mouth and intestines if you eat them. These hairs are, in fact, itching powder! So, if you go foraging for wild rosehips, don’t pop one in your mouth and chew it! If you’re making rosehip tea, you can leave them whole and, thus, avoid the hairs. But, in general, if you’re going to open the hip, you need to get rid of those hairs. This involves removing the ends of the hip, then cutting it in half and scraping out the hairs and seeds, and finally rinsing to make sure every hair is washed away. At that point, the hips are ready for use or drying.
Rosehips are a concentrated source of antioxidants like vitamin C. So much in fact that during World War II, when people in Britain couldn’t get citrus fruits, the British government set up a program to pay children 3d (pence) per pound of collected rosehips, which was then used to make rose hip syrup and was distributed as a homegrown source of much needed vitamin C. For millennia, people have made teas, decoctions, and syrups with them to support the immune system and soothe irritated throats and other symptoms that come with typical winter sniffles. Today people take rosehips as a natural way to get vitamins C, E, and K.
Rosehips are also an age-old food source around the world. They can be eaten fresh (after getting rid of those hairs), and can be cooked, juiced, roasted, or dried for storage. In places like Canada and Alaska with frigid winters, first nations peoples would freeze the hips for later use. People also mix them with food to enhance flavor in soups, teas, and desserts. For example, there is a Middle Eastern doughnut that is traditionally drizzled with rose hip syrup, and nyponsoppa is a traditional Swedish rose hip soup.
Because rose hips are naturally tart, they are particularly wonderful in jellies, jams, and syrups in which a sweetener is added. Rose hip jam recipes exist from as early as the 18th century. Dried rose hips work well for this task and open up the option to do a little mid-winter jelly making!
Makes about 6 1/2-pint jars of jelly.
Ingredients
Directions
Pro Tip: If you have never canned before, please work with an experienced canner or check with your local extension service to ensure you are following all the safety precautions before you start.
These sugar cookies are the first cookies I ever made solo as a child, and they still stand the test of time. The recipe is from a 1963 kids cookbook called Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. As the title implies, this is a very kid-friendly recipe. I did make a change for better flavor—I use unsalted butter and then add salt. To go with the original, use salted butter and eliminate the salt.
Ingredients
Directions
Pro Tips
You may also enjoy:
Topics: Culinary, Herbal Gift Ideas, Recipes, Herbalism
Heidi is an award winning freelance writer with a passion for urban homesteading. She has been honored to receive a number of literary prizes including the esteemed Pushcart Prize and an Individual Artists Award in Creative Writing from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is proud to have earned a certificate of completion for the Herbal Medicine Making Course at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. When she isn’t working in the garden, cleaning the henhouse, preserving food, crafting herbal formulations, or writing and editing content for really fantastic small businesses, you’ll likely find her with her nose in a book.
I love rosehips. I love the way they look on rose shrubs and how they remain bright points of color as the gray of winter approaches. I love how they feed wildlife when it’s cold. I love the nutritional and healthful gifts they offer. And I particularly love how those tart little hips are perfect for jellies, jams, and syrups. I don’t always have time in the fall to harvest and clean fresh hips, so I am always grateful for dried rosehips when winter finally arrives and I can slow down and do some cold weather nesting. Now I have the time to pull luscious dried rosehips from my apothecary closet to make rosehip jelly for my family. However, said family firmly believes that rosehip jelly season also means cookie season, because homemade jellies and jams are the best for thumbprint and/or frosted sugar cookies.
What are Rosehips?
Rosehips—which is also often spelled as two words: rose hips—are the fruits of roses (also called the rose haw or hep). All varieties of roses produce hips, but the Rosa rugosa varieties like Rosa canina and Rosa rubiginosa tend to have larger hips and more of them, so those are the ones that are most often collected for sale and drying. Rose blossoms that are not picked from a plant will finish their flowering cycle and develop a very firm, round or oblong, red or orange hip that appears as the flowers drop off. The hips then develop through the summer into the autumn.
The hip contains rose seeds, but also a plethora of hairs that are incredibly irritating to the mouth and intestines if you eat them. These hairs are, in fact, itching powder! So, if you go foraging for wild rosehips, don’t pop one in your mouth and chew it! If you’re making rosehip tea, you can leave them whole and, thus, avoid the hairs. But, in general, if you’re going to open the hip, you need to get rid of those hairs. This involves removing the ends of the hip, then cutting it in half and scraping out the hairs and seeds, and finally rinsing to make sure every hair is washed away. At that point, the hips are ready for use or drying.
Rosehips are a concentrated source of antioxidants like vitamin C. So much in fact that during World War II, when people in Britain couldn’t get citrus fruits, the British government set up a program to pay children 3d (pence) per pound of collected rosehips, which was then used to make rose hip syrup and was distributed as a homegrown source of much needed vitamin C. For millennia, people have made teas, decoctions, and syrups with them to support the immune system and soothe irritated throats and other symptoms that come with typical winter sniffles. Today people take rosehips as a natural way to get vitamins C, E, and K.
Rosehips are also an age-old food source around the world. They can be eaten fresh (after getting rid of those hairs), and can be cooked, juiced, roasted, or dried for storage. In places like Canada and Alaska with frigid winters, first nations peoples would freeze the hips for later use. People also mix them with food to enhance flavor in soups, teas, and desserts. For example, there is a Middle Eastern doughnut that is traditionally drizzled with rose hip syrup, and nyponsoppa is a traditional Swedish rose hip soup.
Because rose hips are naturally tart, they are particularly wonderful in jellies, jams, and syrups in which a sweetener is added. Rose hip jam recipes exist from as early as the 18th century. Dried rose hips work well for this task and open up the option to do a little mid-winter jelly making!
Makes about 6 1/2-pint jars of jelly.
Ingredients
Directions
Pro Tip: If you have never canned before, please work with an experienced canner or check with your local extension service to ensure you are following all the safety precautions before you start.
These sugar cookies are the first cookies I ever made solo as a child, and they still stand the test of time. The recipe is from a 1963 kids cookbook called Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. As the title implies, this is a very kid-friendly recipe. I did make a change for better flavor—I use unsalted butter and then add salt. To go with the original, use salted butter and eliminate the salt.
Ingredients
Directions
Pro Tips
You may also enjoy:
Topics: Culinary, Herbal Gift Ideas, Recipes, Herbalism
Heidi is an award winning freelance writer with a passion for urban homesteading. She has been honored to receive a number of literary prizes including the esteemed Pushcart Prize and an Individual Artists Award in Creative Writing from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is proud to have earned a certificate of completion for the Herbal Medicine Making Course at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. When she isn’t working in the garden, cleaning the henhouse, preserving food, crafting herbal formulations, or writing and editing content for really fantastic small businesses, you’ll likely find her with her nose in a book.
