candied orange and lemon peel self made (Zitronat and Orangeat)

peel cooking in the sugar water solution

 In German Fruitcakes and Christmas cookies we are using a lot of “Orangeat” = candied orange peel  and “Zitronat” = candied lemon peel. It gives the baked goods a certain kick with the citrusy taste and flavor of those dried skins. Bummer is, of course I won’t be able to find it anywhere over here. So I got to make it on my own, like oh so many things. So I went out to the clever internet and found this recipe. So here goes the lemon and orange peel candy recipe.






Ingredients:

• Thick skin of 2 untreated organs / lemons
• 1 glass of water
• 1 glass of sugar

Peel the white thick inner skin from the orange / lemon skin because this layer contains a lot of bittern that we are not keen on. Cut the skin in streaks, put them in a pot and cover them with water. Cook the whole thing for ten minutes. Now discard the water. Add one glass of water and one glass of sugar. Cook the whole thing at low flame for 20 – 40 minutes. Through the heat the water will vaporize and leave you with caramel, which happened to me the first time. And let me give you word of advise. Caramel on your skin burns away like nothing else. So do not only watch the pot but also watch your fingers while handling potentially hot sugar solutions :). But you don’t want to go so far. You actually really want to catch the instants before all the water is gone and the caramel develops. So you got to watch the pot carefully and supervise the sugar water mix in the pot. When it thickens in and looks glassy and you got a sort of a thick syrup in your pot and the peels are soft. Now you can take out the peels and lay them out on a mesh so they can dry evenly from all sides. Once they are dry then you can cut them in small pieces or work with them any way you want to.

Orange and lemon peel drying on the mesh