Candied Lemon Peels

My sisters swear that I have too much time on my hand. I like to think that I'm curious and thrifty (especially considering the state of the economy right now). So as of late, I've been wanting to make lemon sorbet (a future blog in the making). After squeezing the juice for the sorbet, rather than throwing away the peels, I decided to candy the peels. After doing some research on the internet, I came up with the following recipe. I would recommend using organic lemons because regular lemons in the supermarket have a wax applied to the peel.

Candied Lemon Peel

Peel of 3 medium sized lemons
Water for blancing
1 1/2 C of water
1 3/4 C of sugar
(1/2 C of sugar for coating if needed)

1. Remove the pith (the white parts on the back of the peel) from the peel (try to remove as much as you can).

2. Blanche the peels by boiling several cups of water in a small pan. Put peels into the pan and boil the peels for about 5 minutes. Drain. Repeat this process two more times.

3. Add the 1 1/2 C of water and 1 3/4 C of sugar to the pan. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer the peels for about an hour (boiling longer is okay if necessary). The liquid will be syrupy and the peels should be soft, tender, and sweet. The syrup and peels will be hot.

4. The peels may be left in the syrup and stored in the refrigerator in a clean and air tight container. This method of storage allows the lemon peels to stay soft and flexible. The peels may be chopped up and used when making other baked goods.

5. The peels may also be coated in sugar. Put a 1/2 of sugar in a sealable container (e.g. Tupperware). Once the peels and syrup are cool, take out the peels and put into the container with sugar, seal it, and shake. Afer shaking, take the lemon peels out of the sugar and dry on wax paper. [As my picture indicates, I didn't properly coat the lemon peels with the sugar. I'd recommend coating several strips at a time instead of coating the lemon peels all at once]. Store the sugar-coated lemon peels in an air tight container.

6. Lastly, don't throw away the syrup, it will be a lovely yellow. Keep the lemon syrup in an airtight container in the fridge and use it to make lemonade, as a topping, sweetner, etc.