Infusing

Whole spices can be used to create powerful flavour infusions then removed from the finished dish - good when you want something clean and pure like an ice cream or posset. Time and heat are the drivers to coax out flavours. For dense rhizomes and barks like ginger and cinnamon, decocting (simmering) extracts the buried flavour molecules; for tender botanicals such as tea leaves, steeping is good; and for the most delicate flower petals, a slower cold infusion is better (heat can alter the flavours, but, rather miraculously, cold infusions can be heated after straining and retain their brightness). Alcohol and fat are particularly effective carriers, so cream, butter and spirit infusions are great; sugar and syrups are two other options.