Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy-bottomed pan, leave a wooden spoon in it to keep it from boiling over, and allow it to thicken for about 15 minutes.

Then pour out about 2 cups of the milk, leaving the rest simmering and thickening further on the stove on medium heat and with a wooden spoon still left in.

Into this hot milk, drop in the rose petals. They will wilt and turn from a dark to a light pink almost instantly. Leave them there for a half hour or so. Then strain them out and work with your hands to squeeze both color and taste from the (virtually cooked) rose petals into the milk itself.

Don't throw away the used petals. Blitz them with 2 Tablespoons of sugar in a food processor or mixie jar, and add this back into the now-cooling milk. Set aside.

Meanwhile, scrape down the sides of the the milk left simmering on the stove. Once it has reduced by about half in volume, add 1 1/2 cups of sugar and mix until dissolved. The mixture will look watery, so keep cooking it, stirring once in a while to ensure it doesn't catch at the bottom of the pan. Allow it to cook until it thickens again.

Now switch off the flame and let this thickened milk cool. Add the rose-flavored milk, powdered cardamom, and the scraped seeds of 1 whole vanilla bean. Vanilla essence can be a substitute if you have no bean, but make sure it's the real stuff and not imitation.

Then add a cup of fresh cream or half-and-half. You're left with a combination of 2 cups rose flavored milk, a cup of cream, and as much as you have of the thickened milk. Allow this to cool completely and chill, preferably overnight.

Transfer the milk-cream mixture to the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the instructions given. This will give you a soft scoop ice cream, which then needs freezing once again until it's ready to scoop out (also overnight).

If you’re using nuts, then mix those in at the soft scoop stage, before the final overnight freezing.