Candied Orange (Or Grapefruit or Lemon) Peels

From: KrabKokonas

On Jun 18, 2007

These are just what they say they are - candied grapefruit (in my case) peels. I must say that these are a LOT of work for a little treat and if I were to make these again, I'll go that extra mile to chocolate coat them because 30 more minutes in the kitchen after 2 hours isn't going to kill me! I found that the easiest way for me to get nice grapefruit peels was cut the tops off the grapefruit. Then, cut it in two and juice both halves. Once you've juiced it, cut both halves in two again and lay them flat. Finally, you can just run a knife under the grapefruit membrane left on the peel and discard the membrane. The 3x boiling was a bit tedious but also very necessary because the peels became a lovely orange during the process and lost most of their bitterness. The final boiling in syrup took a very long time (about an hour!) and I finally just had to drain the peels because they were obviously candied (translucent and very sweet) and starting to fall apart. The final step is again quite tedious but important for presentation. You spend about 20 minutes picking apart the sticky mass and rolling the peels in sugar. It makes an attractive peel, but again, the next time I make these I'm going to go one step further and dip them in chocolate for the ultimate treat!