Candied Peel
My first job out of pastry school was in a dessert bar in Calgary called Nectar. Highlights of the menu included a smoky chocolate tart with salted caramel, and sweet corn ice cream.
We also sold beautiful celebration cakes with simple, natural, and elegant decorations—fruit and flowers of course, but also our sparkly, delicious, in-house candied peel.
It felt like I processed lemons (and oranges) and made candied peel every day while working at Nectar, that’s how well I remember the procedure. It is beyond simple to make, and definitely worthwhile.
Candied peel can be incorporated into many different festive recipes (including Dreikönigsküchen) and not just Swiss ones (think Stollen, panettone, or fruitcake).
You can add candied peel wherever dried fruit is found, and it makes an elegant garnish to cakes and desserts.
If I’m making up a cookie box, I like to put some in for a change of texture and flavour, and you can make it even more lush by dipping it in dark chocolate first.
The recipe below describes the process we used, and can be customized to any amount of peel. It requires a bit of patience and good observation skills, but it’s hard to ruin if you pay attention.
orange or lemon peel
sugar
Using a citrus peeler, take the peel off in long ribbons.
Place in a pot and just cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Prepare a colander in the sink.
As soon as the water is boiling, pour out the peel into the colander and rinse with cold water. Place back in the pot and again just cover with cold water. Bring to the boil again.
Keep repeating this process.
Once you have boiled the orange peel three times, taste a little bit. If it is still bitter, boil it one more time. For lemon peel taste after four boils, and keep boiling until it has just a hint of bitterness.
Once you have finished boiling the peel, place it back in the pot. Cover with sugar and about the same amount of water.
(Full disclosure: I usually eyeball the sugar and water, but for a more accurate measurement put your pot on a scale (sit it on a pot holder or wooden cutting board if it’s still hot and your scale is plastic) and cover the peel with granulated sugar, noting how many grams go in. Then add the same amount in ml of water, creating a 1:1 simple syrup.)
Boil this together on medium high heat until the peel turns translucent, around 25 minutes.
While the peel cools slightly in the syrup, fill a bowl with sugar and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Using tongs or forks, lift the peel into the bowl of sugar, tossing to coat, then spread it out on the baking sheet.
Let it cool completely, then place it in an airtight container.
I love my citrus peeler (the official name for this tool seems to be canele cutter) and I bought mine from the Victorinox shop in Brunnen (though I don’t see it on the Victorinox website). In a shop you might find it with the cooking supplies, or with bar tools.
I love the look of super long, dangling ribbons of peel, but if you don’t have the right tool, it is possible to make smaller pieces—simply cut off the peel with a knife or peeler and cut these into small strips, like in this BBC Good Food recipe.
Use fresh fruit—not dried up citrus that’s been hanging around in the fridge—the peel will be softer, come off easier, and the end result will be better.
If you aren’t sure about the bitterness of the peel, taste a little bit before you start boiling. I find it usually takes around three boils for oranges and five boils for lemons, but this depends on how bitter the fruit is, how quickly you change the water, and how bitter you would like the final peel—just a hint for me.
Both the leftover orange syrup and sugar can be used in other baked goods.
This keeps for at least a month.
