Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong · Since the 1960s
Scones with rose petal jam
The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong makes a rose petal jam to a recipe from the 1960s and serves it on the scones of the Clipper Lounge: a floral, pink preserve that is the hotel’s emblem and the city’s best gift in a jar.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A Darjeeling, or the hotel’s own rose tea.
The jam was created in the hotel kitchen shortly after the opening in 1963, from rose petals cooked with sugar and lemon into a translucent pink preserve with the scent of a garden. It is served with the scones of the Clipper Lounge afternoon tea and sold in the Mandarin Cake Shop in small and large jars, and the hotel has built a whole line on it: a rose petal cake, chocolates, a tea.
A scone with clotted cream and rose petal jam on the mezzanine, with the harbour below, is the Hong Kong afternoon in one bite.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- For the jam: 100 g fresh unsprayed rose petals, 400 g sugar, 300 ml water, juice of one lemon, 1 tsp rose water
- For the scones: 500 g flour, 25 g baking powder, 80 g cold butter, 60 g sugar, 2 eggs, 200 ml milk
- Clotted cream
Method
- Rinse the petals, rub them with a spoon of sugar and the lemon juice to release the colour.
- Boil the remaining sugar and water to a syrup, add the petals and simmer 20 minutes until translucent and pink; add rose water and jar hot.
- Make the scones: rub butter into flour and baking powder, stir in sugar, mix in eggs and milk quickly, pat out 3 cm and cut.
- Bake at 220 °C for 12 minutes.
- Serve warm with clotted cream and the rose petal jam.
Where to taste it
