Rose scented geraniums, lemon verbena, Jeremy Lee and a spacehopper
Abundance: 30 November 2023
The frost has ridden a spacehopper1 across the garden. What once was perky, now punctuated by soft implosions, browning leaves and crushed stems.
The scented geranium leaves that most enthusiastically reached for the sun suffered most: the youngest, once protected beneath, now exposed.
Overnight, the lemon verbena has gone from showing the first sign of eyeliner on its lime green leaves to curling like fried prawns. Winter is making its own compost.
Another hard frost will do for the leaves that remain, so I pick while I can.
Two minutes picking and three snips of the secateurs between heavy downpours and I’ve enough scented geranium and lemon verbena to last until the plants resprout in late spring. I’ve left the lemon verbena on the side to dry for the few days they need. Crisp, they retain 90% of their fresh liveliness. That’ll do me.
The young, still vibrant, scented geranium leaves need to be dealt with immediately, before they fall quickly into saggy lobes. Half go to herb sugar, half to syrup. This puts them in a kind of culinary holding pattern, their flavour captured to use another time.
Herb sugar
Scented geraniums come in flavours from lemon to lime, hazelnut to pine. Some are a great deal truer to their name than others. Rose is the essential. Tender as they are, they’re usually available to buy as plants in late spring, though if grown undercover or in a mild location they can overwinter.
This simple recipe works beautifully with any of the sweeter herbs such as lemon verbena, lavender and mint.
A couple of dozen rose scented geranium leaves
500g caster sugar
Layer the leaves in the sugar and allow to infuse over night for a mild flavour, or a week for something more intense. Discard the leaves when using the sugar.
Herb syrup
This couldn’t be easier: stir slightly less boiling water by weight into caster sugar - eg 250g water to 300g caster sugar - adding a couple of dozen rose scented geranium leaves to infuse as it cools.
This is the antithesis of rocket science: the less you add of the herb, the longer the flavour takes to infuse: taste it and sieve out the leaves when it’s as you fancy. Bottle and store in the fridge where it will keep for weeks.
Use on pancakes, poured over ice cream or cakes, in cocktails, with yoghurt, in dressings and so on.
Both the sugar and syrup suit a recipe I’ve been thinking of since I came home with those bags of nuts the other week. The recipe isn’t mine; it’s that of an excellent friend, Jeremy Lee.
Jeremy is a car air bag of exuberance, instantly filling the available space with warmth, enthusiasm and Jeremyness. He’s a man that should you see him twice a day, you’d still be happy for a third. He writes beautifully, he cooks incredibly and he just makes you feel better about the world. He is, as Jay Rayner remarked "one of those rare phenomena in the London food world: a chap everyone agrees is a good thing."2
I made his walnut cake a long time ago, but for reasons unknown and - given how special it is - insubstantial, not since. I borrowed it today, inspired by that net of hazelnuts and the rose scented geraniums. Nuts, rose, sugar: a baklava combination I hoped might translate to his cake, and it most certain does.
Hazelnut and rose cake
My recipe differs from Jeremy’s in a few respects: for example, I use 5 medium eggs to his 4 large; I employ hazelnuts in place of walnuts; I like slightly more olive oil; I’ve added rosiness, and so on - but I mean no disrespect, only gratitude.
There are two ways to make this: as below, or - if you’ve made the syrup - knock back the sugar to 175g and the oil to 20ml and (having made numerous holes with a cake skewer) drizzle some of the syrup over the cake as it cools and allow it to soak in.
350g shelled hazelnuts, coarsely ground
5 medium eggs, separated
225g rose sugar (or use caster sugar and 2 tsp rosewater)
1 lemon, zest only, finely grated
40ml of olive oil
Preheat the oven to 175°C fan/155°C. Line a 23cm cake tin with baking parchment.
Beat the egg yolks, oil and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Fold in the hazelnuts and lemon zest.
In another bowl, whisk the egg whites to form soft peaks. Fold a third through the nutty, oily egg mix. Carefully fold in the remaining egg whites.
Pour into the cake tin. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Test with a skewer or similar and allow a few minutes longer if needed.
Dust with icing sugar if you like. Serve with whatever kind of cream makes you happiest.
I must’ve been 9 or so and wanted nothing more than a spacehopper. I ached for it in the way Roy Orbison convinced me lost love felt. That Christmas, it arrived. There is no broader smile than the one I wore bouncing down the paths that looped around the houses that sunny, cold Christmas Day afternoon. These short, cold days always remind me of the unalloyed, undiluted joy of that Christmas when nothing could improve the world. An Airfix car to make, the Radio Times with programmes circled, The Two Ronnies had a Christmas special on, and old man had even got decent biscuits in for a change.
Can I say that bouncing on a spacehopper whilst tripping was one of the best experiences of my teenage years.
The hazelnut and rise cake sounds divine! I’m definitely going try the scented geraniums next year.