Candied Orange Peel, AKA Candy!!!!

Having just visited the library and waiting for my son to get out of school, I was browsing through The Essential Baker, by Carole Bloom which I happened to grab off the shelf while chasing my two toddlers through the cookbook section. How happy I am to have this book in my possession! I have been reading this book at night just like I read one of my Anne Rice books... all in!

I have learned so much from just the first section. Did you know baking soda has four times the rising power as baking powder? And they are not interchangeable.

The layout of the book is familiar to me; I've seen this particular layout in other cookbooks and I really like it. Each recipe is basically in a 3-column layout with ingredients on the left, details in the middle, and important info on the right. There's not many pictures so it's a lot of faith that you sorta end of end up with what the author meant.

When I opened the book it opened to page 171, Candied Orange Peel. Reading through the recipe, it all seemed so easy. Hours later my neighbor called and offered me some fresh oranges her mother had given her. Coincidence? In the end I couldn't use those particular oranges because the recipe calls for large, thick-skinned oranges, which those weren't, but it was still a nudge I believe.

Whatever, let's get going! Words in italics are the exact recipe. My smart remarks are within.

Using a chef's knife, slice the ends off 6 to 8 large, thick skinned oranges, then cut the oranges into quarters. Cut off most of the pulp, but leave some attached. This keeps the orange peel from becoming bitter as it cooks.

Place the orange slices in the saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat and cook for 5 minutes.

Drain the oranges with fresh cold water. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat and cook for 5 minutes.

After the second draining, I realized I needed a bigger pan. So I got the big daddy out.

Continue... (That's so much better.)
Once again, drain the oranges and repeat the process with fresh cold water.

Drain the oranges and rinse them in cold water. Using your fingers, remove any remaining pulp that is still attached to the orange slices. This is exactly what the recipe says, let me tell you, they are hot! There are no using fingers to remove the pulp. Good grief! Grab a spoon to get it off.

Cut the orange lengthwise into slices.

 Here's your first 3 cups of sugar.

 

And your 1/4 up orange liqueur. You know why I have this stuff on hand right? Because Grand Marnier is a Oh Katie! Cookie flavor! Yes it is! 

Replace the oranges slices in the saucepan. Add 3 cups sugar and 1/4 cup orange liqueur. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes.

Again, this is exactly what the recipe says, there is no talk about adding water to the sauce pan, but duh! There has to be. So I just did what I had done the previous three times, cover the slices with cold water. Add the sugar and liqueur.

Cook the mixture at a simmer over very low heat for 1 and 1/2 hours. Most of the sugar will be absorbed by the orange peel as it cooks.

Remove the saucepan from the heat.


Cover 2 or 3 baking pans with parchment or waxed paper.

On another piece of parchment paper, mound the remaining 3 cups granulated sugar.

Take large spoonfuls of the orange peel and place them in the sugar. Roll them in the sugar, separating the slices, then transfer them to the lined baking sheets and let them air dry for 20 to 30 minutes. Repeat until all the orange slices are coated in sugar.

 This coating them in sugar was a big bloody mess in my opinion. They were coming out with massive wet sugar rocks attached to them and I couldn't imagine giving these to people to eat. I mean, I could have just moistened some sugar cubes with orange extract and it would have simpler. So I was brushing off a lot of the sugar to try to get a reasonable coating.

Stop right here. Letting them air dry for 20 to 30 minutes is pretty much a joke. After that amount of time they were still juicy and wet. Maybe I have a different idea of what candied orange peel should be like, but I really wanted mine to be dry. Or at least more dry than not. So I turned the oven on 200 and put them in there for a long, long, very long time. And they were much better for it.

 However, tragedy occurred when I was attempting to... I have no recollection of what I was trying to do actually. It's all a very sad, sugar coated blur. I spilled an entire pan all over the oven door and floor.

Boo Hoo!

 Store the candied orange peel in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 4 months.

All in all this was a pretty time intensive project. The amount of sugar seems absurd. And you throw so much of it away at the end. I wish I had some sort of brilliance about me and could have figured out what to do with all of that orange flavored sugar. But I'm not and I didn't.


Had I not spilled an entire pan it would have yielded a more realistic amount. I'm still not sure what to do with it. I guess I could put it in little tiny jars for gifts. Or keep it in the fridge and shop up to put in scones or muffins. I could always get crazy and garnish a pretty cake with it.

My mother has a mutant lemon tree at her house so I grabbed a few when I was there this past week.

I spent the second have of the day trying the recipe with these crazy lemons.

It didn't work out. The end product tasted grossly bitter and I couldn't think of how to salvage them. Or maybe I just didn't feel like trying because I had spent the entire day boiling and sugaring with only about 2 cups of end product to show for it.

One last thing, in between all of this I had the idea to just get our Christmas Card picture out of the way. So I ordered the husband to grab the tripod, the camera, and a kid.

The Best we Could do. Merry Christmas 2010