Monday, December 2, 2019

Christmas Cake Part One - Candied Orange Peel

We already make the Christmas Cake Muffins on a regular basis, and I find them very tasty indeed.  But, with the holiday season fast approaching, I wanted more...  But first, to make it authentic, I needed candied orange peel.

Fortunately, the Internet delivered, with this recipe which I will repeat here with my own notes.

Ingredients
  • A sauce pan of water
  • Two navel oranges with thick skin (this also works well with lemon peel replacing part of the orange peel)
  • 1 cup honey
  • 1 cup water
Instructions
  1. Carefully score and remove the peel from the oranges in sections, then cut it all into thin strips about 0.5cm (1/4") wide.
  2. Boil all of the peel in the saucepan full of water for at least twenty minutes.
  3. Drain the peel well in a colander.
  4. In a saucepan, combine one cup honey and one cup water.
  5. Bring the honey/water mixture to a boil, stirring frequently to make sure they're well-mixed.
  6. Reduce heat and boil for ten minutes, continuing to stir frequently.  You're making a syrup here, trying to boil off some of the water.  Be VERY careful not to splash any of this on you.
  7. Add all of the orange peel to the hot syrup in the pan, mix well, reduce heat to low.
  8. Simmer for about 45 minutes.  Stir occasionally, but more frequently as you near the end of the cooking time.  Keep a VERY close eye on it as it nears the end of the 45 minutes, it's easy to scorch it.
  9. Remove to parchment paper to cool for 10 minutes.  Try to get the strips teased out into individual pieces, rather than having one big clump.
Now you can eat them as-is, dip them in melted chocolate, or use them in cooking.  Stay tuned for the recipe I used these in!

No comments:

Post a Comment