Color me Orange! (Pix Credit: Lukas, Berlin)
Holidays are back again! Time for all things exciting and beautiful. Holiday decorations, gifts, loved ones and not to mention the cakes and bakes.
To help you kick start the baking season, here is a quick tutorial on how to make dried orange peel that goes as a secret ingredient in many yummy cakes, bakes and savories. A little secret about the orange peels is that it curbs your hunger pangs too 🙂
Oranges are in season and orange peels go into garbage. A better way is to harvest all the orange peels, sit in the comfort of your chair and make candied orange peels that you can eat right out of your tin or add to your cakes.
How to make dried orange peel
Here is a simple recipe with no hard and fast rules for measurement. You will arrive at the best quantity of each ingredient after an attempt or two. Here is my personal favorite:
- Peels of 2 big oranges (having eaten the lovely fruit)
- Sugar – Handful
- Water – Enough to cover the peels
Having eaten the orange, collect the leftover peels.
With a spoon or a knife, clean the pith. The white part of the peel is slightly bitter and can be removed. If you like a bit of bitterness in your baked goodies, you can leave it on. I prefer scraping the pith as the dried orange peel tastes sweet and tangy.
Scrape the pith for making dried orange peels
Wash the peels thorougly and cut it into thick or thin slices.
Julienne Well – Cut orange peel into thin slices
You can wash the thin slices again before you boil to ensure all the scraped pith and little bits are left behind.
Strips of orange peel ready to become candy 🙂
Boil the peel in adequate water with sugar. You could leave it on slow fire for a while for the peels to become tender.
15 minutes should suffice.
Boil – to infuse the peel with sugary sweetness
Drain out the peels, spread it on a plate or tray and leave it out in the sun for 2 days.
Sun-kissed luscious strips
After two days, take a bite of this peel to see if it is done.
If it is crunchy and crumbles, it is done and dried.
Done and Dried
Stock on this dried orange peel which can last for months. You could simply chew on them (as they are addictive), add a few into your iced tea or hot tea, dip into molten chocolate and set it to dry or simply pop in a few into the cake or cookie batter.
Whats an orange cake without a peel within?
That was yummm!!!
But even yummier are the candied orange peels that follow the same procedure as above. The moment you drain the peels from the water, roll them in powdered sugar so that the peels are well coated and put it out to dry. You could also bake these to speed up your drying time.
I’d prefer the sun-kissed peels and day. I made quite a few of these but needless to stay that they are disappearing at a fast rate. You know why!
For all the christmas cakes, apple cinnamon cakes, carrot cakes and more, this one ingredient does wonders. Did I tell you that chocolate and orange is a killer combination?
So all you bakers, make you own box of candied peel and keep adding that yummm factor to your baking escapades!
You could also gift a box of these as goodies to someone who bakes. Hmmmm, thats a very thoughtful handmade gift.
Let me know if this helped. And if you too are munching it away 🙂
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Thank you.
This is exactly what I was looking for.
I went to my local grocery store looking for orange candied peel. I found lemon but not orange which is what I prefer.
I am making a fruit loaf that is an English recipe and it requires several ingredients I have been hunting down One by one.
I will just make the orange peel my self. It probably tastes way better.