Candied peel

In the interests of thriftiness and deliciousness, whenever you are using just the juice or flesh of any citrus, try candying the peel. Excellent for using in cakes and buns, or as a decoration.

Peel the fruit thickly, and try to remember next time to do it before you juice them …


… because it's not so easy afterwards.

Put the peel in a pot with some water and a little baking soda, leave to soak for 20 minutes.

Drain the peel and add fresh water. Bring to the boil and cook until tender.


Drain it again, and add a syrup made from equal volumes of sugar and water. I used a cup of each. Bring to the boil, then let it cool and leave it to soak for a couple of days.

Add half as much sugar again (half a cup for me), bring it back to the boil and simmer until the peel is transparent.


My lime peel refused to go transparent no matter how long I cooked it, but the lemon peel did as expected.

Dry the peel on a rack, either in the sun or in a cool oven.


If you want you can dip the peel in the reserved syrup again and dry it a second time, but I cooked mine so long trying to get the lime peel to go transparent that my syrup was damned near solid when it cooled.


But my peel is delicious. I need to put it away so I stop picking at it. I can't make up my mind whether to chop it up small now, or to do it as I need it.