Candied Lemon Peel (How to Make)

❤️Why you will love this recipe

• Making this candied lemon peel is easy.
• With only 3 simple ingredients i.e. the lemon skin, sugar, and water, you can make these yummy treats in no time at all.
• The recipe is a great way to use up all those lemon skins after making your favorite homemade lemonade, frozen lemonade, brown sugar lemonade or honey lemonade.
• These candied peels are not only great to be enjoyed on their own, you can use them for cake decorating too, like I did with candied orange peels on my orange cake.
• They make excellent snack anytime of the day.

📋Ingredients

• Lemon peel - you will be using the outer yellow skin of lemons, so choose unwaxed lemons or organic lemons. Make sure to wash the fruits thoroughly. The best way to cut the lemon skin is when the juice is not squeezed out yet.
• Sugar - this is used in 2 stages. Firstly to cook the sugar syrup, and secondly to coat the cooked peels. For the sugar syrup, you can use coarse sugar, but for the coating, you will need to use granulated sugar (caster sugar).
• Water - Use filtered water.

Cutting and blanching the peel

Wash the lemons and dab them dry with a kitchen towel.

1. Next, peel the lemons. Use a vegetable peeler or a sharp paring knife to do it. Either way, slice the skin off the lemons into wide strips along with some of the white pith underneath. There is no need to focus only on the rind as these candied peels are best made with some of the pith intact. And don’t worry if you cut too much of the pith too. You can always remove it later.
2. Once you have the lemon skin all peeled, the next step is to slice the peels. Before you do that, if there is too much pith included in any of the cut strips, remove them at this stage. Too much pith will give your candied peels a bitter flavor. Use a small sharp knife to carefully slice off the white pith. Again, the intention is not to totally remove the white pith, but to leave some on. If all the white pith is removed, there won’t be much to munch on these candied lemon peels.
3. And then proceed with slicing the peels. There is no hard and fast rule on how to slice these peels. I chose to cut mine into about 1mm to 2mm thickness and about 1 inch long. You can make them bigger or smaller as you wish. The thicker you cut them, the longer it would take to cook them to a translucent stage.
4. Add some cold water into a small saucepan. Bring it to a rolling boil on medium heat.
5. Add the sliced lemon peel and boil for them for about 10 minutes over low heat.
6. Drain the peels with a slotted spoon or a large sieve and discard the water. Set the peels aside. This process helps to remove the bitterness of the pith.

Making the sugar syrup and cooking the peels in syrup

1. The next step is making the simple syrup. To do this, measure the sugar and water into a medium saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium and stir until the sugar dissolves.
2. Add the drained lemon peel strips into the syrup.
3. Reduce the heat to low and cook the peels in the syrup for about 10 minutes, until they turn translucent. Continue cooking if they are not. And remember to keep the heat low to avoid the syrup from thickening too much. Too thick a syrup will make it harder to strain in off later.
4. Once the peels are cooked, pour the peels along with the syrup into a strainer. Leave the lemon strips in the strainer for 5 to 10 minutes to allow all excess syrup to drain off. Also take note to not leave the peels too long in the strainer to avoid the syrup coating on them from drying out.
5. The final step is to coat the lemon peels in sugar. Fill a small bowl with sugar. Drop a few slices of the syrup-coated lemon peels into the bowl. Use a fork to toss the peels in the sugar until they are well coated. You can do this in small batches.
6. Place the sugar-coated candied lemon peels in a parchment paper lined tray or baking sheet and let them dry in a cool dry place for about 30 minutes. And they are ready to be enjoyed!

🍽️Serving & storage

• The candied peels can be stored at room temperature for a good 2 to 3 weeks. Keep them in an airtight container. They can last for at least 6 months if kept refrigerated.

💡Expert Tips

• These candied peels are best made with fresh lemons. Choose the ones that look fresh and plump rather that those that look dry. The candied peels will be a lot softer and chewy when made with fresh peel.
• Once the lemon peel is all prepared and cut, it is best to cook and candy them on the same day or within the next day. They tend to become dry if you keep them for a few days. When candied, these peels will be hard and dry compared to the ones made immediately after the peel is cut and sliced.
• It is always easier to peel the lemon skin when it is still not juiced. Hence, if you intend to both cut the skin for making candied lemon peels and juice the lemon for something else, remember to cut the skin first before you juice the fruits.
• When cooking the lemon peels in the syrup, make sure the heat is the lowest possible. This will allow the peels sufficient time to cook to a translucent stage and at the same time, avoid the sugar syrup from thickening too much. If it does, you will have a problem straining it out once the lemons peels are cooked.
• Once you have drained the syrup from the peels, you literally have a lovely batch of lemon-infused sugar syrup (citrus syrup) that can be used to make any citrus-flavored drink. Keep the syrup refrigerated.
• When straining the sugar syrup of the lemon peels, it is best to do it in a strainer. Leave the peels in the strainer for a few minutes (about 5 to 10 minutes) to allow all the excess syrup to drain out. The syrup will be quite thick, hence the need to give it time to properly drain out.
• Also, take note to not leave the peels in the strainer too long. I did that once and realized the syrup coating on the peels has dried up. And when I tried to coat the peels with granulated sugar, the sugar would not stick to the peels.
• These candied lemon peels are best coated in granulated sugar. Firstly, it sticks to the peels better. Secondly, the regular sugar granules are large and can make your peels a little too sweet. You can also use fine brown sugar in place of the granulated sugar.

💭FAQs