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Dessert

Candied Orange, or Lemon Peels

Citrus peels candied in sugar syrup after soaking and scalding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Candied Orange, or Lemon Peels

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the peels

  1. Clean the lemon or orange peels, removing all pulp.

  2. Soak the peels in a mixture of salt and water for 48 hours.

  3. Scald the peels.

  4. Drain the peels well.

Candy the peels

  1. Place the peels in a thin syrup.

  2. Boil the peels until they look clear.

  3. Transfer the peels to a thick syrup made with fine loaf sugar.

  4. Simmer the peels until the sugar begins to candy around them.

Dry and finish

  1. Lay the peels separately on a wire rack to drain.

  2. Sprinkle sifted sugar over the peels.

  3. Dry the peels in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

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.

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

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

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

Lemon or orange peels
Provide the main body and bitter aromatic flavour that the candying transforms.
Fine loaf sugar
Replaces the peel's moisture in the syrup, making the peels sweet and firm once dried.

The step that matters

Simmer until the sugar begins to candy. Sugar must penetrate the peel gradually through successive syrups; if the syrup is too concentrated or heated too hard, the surface sets before the sugar reaches the interior, leaving tough peels.

“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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