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Candied Lemon Peel

Candied lemon peel is made by boiling lemon quarters, soaking, and simmering in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Candied Lemon Peel

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Candied Lemon Peel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peels

  1. Cut the lemons into quarters lengthwise and remove the pulp.

  2. Soak the peels in a strong saltwater solution for 2 days.

  3. Drain the peels.

  4. Soak the peels in cold water for 1 hour.

  5. Boil the peels in fresh cold water until tender.

  6. Drain the peels on a sieve.

Make the candy syrup

  1. Make a syrup with 1 quart of the boiling water and 1 pound of sugar.

  2. Simmer the peels in the syrup for 1 hour or until clear.

  3. Pour the syrup and peels into a bowl.

  4. Let the mixture stand overnight.

  5. Prepare more syrup with equal parts sugar and water.

  6. Boil the syrup until it threads.

  7. Add the peels to the syrup and simmer for 1 hour.

  8. Drain the peels on a sieve.

Dry and store

  1. Place the peels on a dish to dry in a cool oven or warm place.

  2. Store the candied peels in tin boxes for use in mincemeat, plum puddings, etc.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sugar syrup penetrates the peel, sweetening it and preserving it as candy.
Lemons
Peel supplies the candied fruit flavour and the chewy, translucent texture after syrup soaking.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it threads. Sugar concentration controls texture. Syrup boiled too little stays runny and leaves the peel sticky, while overcooking hardens it, so the threading stage marks the right concentration for candying.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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