Candied Orange or Lemon Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak and boil the peels, as for preserves.
Make a thin syrup of a quart of water to a pound of sugar.
Candy the peels
Simmer the peels in the syrup for half an hour, then pour them into a bowl and let stand until the next day.
Make a second syrup of a pound of sugar to a pint of water, boiling it until it falls from the spoon in threads.
Put the peels into the second syrup and boil for half an hour, then take them out and drain on a sieve.
As the candy dries, transfer it to a dish to dry in a warm place.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that candies the peel, giving sweetness and a glossy, preserved coating.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar into syrup that the peel can absorb, carrying sweetness into it.
The step that matters
Boiling the second syrup to the thread stage. The syrup must reach the thread stage so that, once cooled, the peel keeps a firm, dry sugar coating. Too little cooking leaves it sticky, and too much turns it brittle or grainy.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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