Good morning all,

I am quite addicted to Pintrest and can easily spend a very happy half hour in the morning checking out all the wonderful things people make. Got 190 pins so far and most of them are baking or chocolate related and I want to make them all. Anyway, this is how one of my mornings started last week and my eye fell on candied citrus peel. I’ve tried to make these in the past and never quite succeded so I was keen to try another recipe, and I had a big bowl full of oranges and lemons that were in need of eating.

This recipe is inspired by Luna Cafe but I’ve changed the quantaties and the timings of it.  This is all so simple and everybody loved them, including me and hubby who finished them off that same evening.

Cut the peel off 5 lemons and 4 oranges, or you can use just oranges or just lemons. The easiest way to do this is to score the peel into quarters and then carefully peeling them off, then on a cutting board slice the quarters into 1 – 1.5 cm strips. You need to make sure you cut excess white stuff off the peels, but keep some of it because otherwise they can become a bit hard.

Put the sliced peel in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a simmer for a minute or two. Make sure it only simmers as you don’t want them turning to mush.  Then drain and repeat the simmering process twice more. This is to remove the bitterness of the peels.

You then need to make the sugar syrup in which to simmer the peels in.  Into a saucepan, put 3 cups of granulated sugar and 3 cups of water and slowly, slowly bring to a simmer whilst stirring all the time. By the time it simmers, the syrup should be clear and no longer cloudy with un-dissolved sugar. When it simmers, add your citrus peels and very gently simmer for two hours. Seems like a long time? Yes, but if you do it really gently the peels will become soft and sweet and yummy, but please keep an eye on them as it depends on the thickness of the slices and yours may not need quite so long.

Whilst this is simmering, prepare for the drying of the peels.  I used a wire rack on top of baking paper to catch the sugary drips and save on cleaning afterwards. You can use anything to go underneath the wire rack but do use something as it’s a bit of a nightmare to clean sugar syrup from surfaces.

When they are ready to be taken off the heat, pick the peels up with kitchen tonges and put on the wire rack to dry for 24 hours or so. You can sprinkle them with sugar before they dry but if you intend to cover them with chocolate I suggest not to.

When they are dry, melt some dark chocolate over a bain marie and put on a large square of baking paper and pop into the fridge until the chocolate hardens. You can of course temper your chocolate and make them pretty with decorations but these ones are all about the taste – and as I mentioned before – I was short on time when I dipped them.

I’m off to Italy tomorrow, but I will be back next week with, all going well, a photo or two of the view from Monte Sospiro.

Ciao for now peeps.

Marie