Dried and Candied Orange Peels

Sarah — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:37:00 +0000

I had a box of naval oranges – a LOT of oranges. That is a lot of orange peels when everything is said and done. What I did with the oranges will come in the next post. But, I wanted to emphasize that I had a LOT of orange peels. Enough to feel guilty of throwing it all away.

So I candied and dried the suckers. Boy, it was a serious pain in the butt to scrape the peels down to the orange part and all that. I don’t recommend doing this unless you are a patient person with time to kill. It takes a while if you have a lot of orange peels.

CANDIED ORANGE PEELS

3 lg. oranges

3/4 c. water

2 tbsp. light corn syrup

2 3/4 c. sugar

Cut peel from oranges into quarters. Slice with 1/4 inch wide strips. You should have approximately 4 cups. Place peels in a non-aluminum saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to boiling and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Drain in colander.

Boil water, syrup, and 2 cups sugar, stirring until dissolved. Add peels. Simmer, stirring occasionally, 35-55 minutes until peels are translucent and tender.

Remove peels with slotted spoon to rack. Let drain 5 minutes. Separate peels. Place on dehydrator racks and over. Let sit for 24 hours.

Dry in dehydrator or oven at 130 degrees Fahrenheit until tacky, about 1 hour. Place the remaining 3/4 cup sugar in bowl. Add peels and toss until they are covered with sugar.

Let dry on racks about 2 to 4 hours or until chewy when tested. Store in airtight container for 1 month or bag and freeze for several months.

They were pretty good! I say only pretty good because I slightly over-dried mine. I recommend checking them every hour in the last drying process to make sure that you don’t make the same mistake I did.

So, yeah, if they look like this – they have been over-dried. They should look more like the picture above this. Lesson learned.

Cook Can Spin Dye » orange

Dried and Candied Orange Peels