Tag: recipes

Ingredients:

• Oranges
• Sugar
• Water
• Ice Water for blanching

Recommended 5-10 oranges per 4-5 cups sugar and 8-10 cups water.

Short version: Blanch oranges 2 min. Make syrup with 2 parts water per one part sugar, cooking on med/high until sugar is dissolved. Cook orange slices 45 minutes to an hour, remove to cooling racks to dry 24 hours. Enjoy!

If you want more details, here is a step by step. After much trial and error, here is my preferred method for candied citrus, perfect for orange slices. I don’t have time to write a life story about how my grandparents invented oranges, maybe next time!

Time to blanch! The most important thing to making the rinds crunchy and less bitter is blanching. Although this appears to be common knowledge, I was hoping it didn’t matter, much. I always love one less step but, welp it does make a difference.

Slice your citrus fruits. I chose oranges, clementines, blood oranges and lemons. Grapefruit would be great too. (I did about 3/16ths but had many bigger and smaller) and drop in boiling water for two minutes and then put in an ice bath until cooled. Dump out the water you blanched in and make a syrup with sugar and fresh water. 1:2 ratio sugar and water (by volume, not weight) so for 4-6 oranges, a couple lemons and a few cuties you’d need 8 cups of water and 4 cups sugar. (You will have a lot of syrup left over, because the slices have to be able to float around freely. Consider putting this extra citrus simple syrup in a jar in the fridge for cocktails, mocktails or baking.)

Bring the water and sugar to a boil, stirring often. Add spices and/or a vanilla bean to enhance the flavors. Once sugar has completely dissolved, put in the orange slices and reduce to a quiet simmer. Stir often, flipping the slices over so they don’t stick together or cook unevenly. Remove at 45 minutes to an hour, when the rind is starting to get translucent.

Cool for 24 hours on a wire rack flipping once about halfway through before they stick to the wire rack. Or use parchment paper if you don’t have a rack, but it will take longer and more flips to dry evenly. I dried mine in a dehydrator for a few hours on about 90 degrees and then left another couple of days before sugaring. I did some in powdered sugar and some in granulated sugar, you can also dip in chocolate.