How to Make Cold Strawberry Rose Soup

In previous posts, I have shared my cold strawberry soup and my rose petal jelly recipes. Today, after a fruitful trip to the farmers market, and noticing the abundant blooms on my rosebush, I was inspired to create a new recipe that combines the best of both of these springtime delicacies. The result was amazing. It is lighter and brighter tasting. Plus the roses add a certain je ne sais quoi.

If this sounds appealing to you, here is how you can make your own cold strawberry rose soup.  You will need the following:

• 2 quarts of fresh strawberries
• 1 cup of rose petals
• 1 teaspoon of rosewater
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of yogurt
• 1/4 cup of maple syrup

Rinse the rose petals, then place them in a blender. Only use roses that you are absolutely sure have never been treated with pesticides. It’s best to use ones that you have picked from your own garden (or that of your trusted friends and family).

Wash, hull and halve the strawberries (you will probably use closer to 1 1/2 quarts, but it’s nice to have extras for garnish and for eating while you prepare the soup), then place as many as you can in the blender with the rose petals.

Add 1 teaspoon each of rose water and vanilla extract (I made my own by soaking 2 vanilla beans in a small bottle of brandy for 6 weeks) to the strawberries and roses. Puree until smooth.

Add the yogurt and maple syrup, and blend until well-mixed. (I’ve been using yogurt from Blue Ridge Dairy. All of their products are amazing, their cows are very happy, and their representative at my farmers market looks like Francis from Malcolm in the Middle :-).

You can add more strawberries at this point since you will have more room in the blender.

Chill, then serve garnished with a dollop of yogurt. Enjoy!

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How to Make Cold Strawberry Soup

This morning I made a trip to my local farmers market. I was happy to see that, even though it’s a bit late in the season for them, the strawberries were still available in abundance. I picked out two pints of these perfect looking berries, and decided that I would make my seasonal strawberry specialty — cold strawberry soup.

I started by washing the strawberries, then hulling and quartering them, saving a few to eat while I made the soup. 

I added 1/2 cup of organic whole milk yogurt, 1/2 cup of organic cane sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. I then set the blender to the lowest setting, and blended the mixture for about 3 minutes, until it looked completely smooth. The yogurt adds a nice bit of tartness to the soup, but if you prefer, you can substitute it with milk or half and half. Also, I found that 1/2 cup of sugar was a bit on the sweet side — I think this is because the strawberries were so incredibly sweet on their own. If you are using grocery store strawberries, this amount of sugar should be fine, but feel free to adjust it to your own palate.

Once the mixture was completely blended, I stirred in 1/4 cup of Prosecco. You can leave this out, or you can use any type of white wine, champagne, cava or sparkling wine that you have on hand.

Chill mixture in refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Serve with a sprig of fresh mint for garnish, and enjoy! It’s best if eaten within 24 hours. This recipe makes 4 servings, or 2 very generous ones!

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