Have you all ever tried these? They are scrumptious. I'll be making some up today. Oh, and guess what? My better half may be doing a guest post at the Acorn! We shall see... ;) Have a lovely weekend, everyone.
The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook; an awesome thrift shop find! In it is a recipe for candied orange peel, an old fashioned sweet popular in colonial times and a family favorite of ours for the Christmas season. It's easy to make, too.
Can you believe it only took four oranges to get this much peel? This recipe suggests removing all the white part of the orange skin, but I prefer to leave some. It's less fiddley to prepare. Having tried it both ways, I think it tastes better, too.
Love the vintage pen and ink drawings that are through out the book. Click on the photo to enlarge the recipe.
You'll have to imagine that there is a picture of the peel cooking in a pot of sugar syrup, which I forgot to take because I was too busy trying to avoid burning myself while stirring the molten hot lava-like syrup. This is what the peel will look like after being cooked, at which point you sprinkle it with sugar.
Ta - da! When it finally dries, the peel is all sugary sparkley-warkley Christmasy nice. Much better than sugar plums, in my opinion.
The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook; an awesome thrift shop find! In it is a recipe for candied orange peel, an old fashioned sweet popular in colonial times and a family favorite of ours for the Christmas season. It's easy to make, too. 
Can you believe it only took four oranges to get this much peel? This recipe suggests removing all the white part of the orange skin, but I prefer to leave some. It's less fiddley to prepare. Having tried it both ways, I think it tastes better, too.
Love the vintage pen and ink drawings that are through out the book. Click on the photo to enlarge the recipe.
You'll have to imagine that there is a picture of the peel cooking in a pot of sugar syrup, which I forgot to take because I was too busy trying to avoid burning myself while stirring the molten hot lava-like syrup. This is what the peel will look like after being cooked, at which point you sprinkle it with sugar.
Ta - da! When it finally dries, the peel is all sugary sparkley-warkley Christmasy nice. Much better than sugar plums, in my opinion.
11 comments:
i love awesome thrift store finds... most of what i have comes from them. i would be so tempted to try to make these if i wasn't so pregnant and not wanting to do anything anymore. maybe next year.
I love that it's a colonial recipe!
Thanks, Amy and Emily. When I first saw these, I didn't think I'd like them. But they're surprisingly delicious. Not at all like the gross citron candy. These are addicting.
Last Christmas, between making Peppermint Bark and Julia Child's Mousse au Chocolat, I got the notion to make Orange-Chocolate Bark.
Julia Child's recipe for Mousse calls for orange extract, because as any good chocolatier knows: orange and chocolate have a special relationship.
My idea is as follows: Melt dark chocolate in a buttered foil covered cookie tray as though you were making chocolate bark. Let the chocolate rest until almost hardend. Melt the white chocolate with orange extract added to taste. (The white chocolate must be real white chocolate as we all know, otherwise it won't bond to the dark chocolate. Real means it must be made with cocoa butter.) Pour the white chocolate over the dark, and top with candied orange peels.
Truthfully, I have not made the recipe yet, but I can already tell it is purely genious!
By providence you have posted this recipe, because I plan to make it as a treat for one of our 12 days of Christmas, and we are going grocery shopping for such treats this weekend.
If it turns out well, you'll hear all about it!
Niamh, that sounds so good! Let me know how it comes out. I bought some orange extract to make a dark chocolate/coconut/almond candy that I saw on Pinterest. I wish we could be there to celebrate with you guys. Little Miss was chatty with me on Skype the other day. I know she'll be happy when you make the candy because she was lamenting to me that there was no candy in the house. xox
mmmmm, that sounds so good! I love orange :) I am going to have to make this for sure.
Rosie, they are especially nice when you place them on a saucer next to a nice, hot cup of tea.
love that book. (and looking forward to that guest post ;)
Hi Jodi,
We loved this post last year and Rachel went through a labor of love to make it. We served it at Christmas and froze the rest of it for recipes to come.
She just used the peel in a batch of Panetonne (Italian Christmas bread.) It smells delicious and I know it's going to be great. It really enhanced her Easter bread in Spring, and the two types of breads are similar. Both types call for citron
and both are greatly improved with the orange peel.
Thanks for the step by step pics and directions!
Love,
Joan
A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family from ours!
I am commenting to say that the Chocolate-Orange Bark was a complete success flavor-wise!
I melted 12oz dark chocolate, then chilled it. I then melted 12oz white chocolate and added 1 tsp. of orange extract. I kept the white chocolate over medium heat until there was no more hair spray smell from the extract. I then spread the white chocolate over the dark and put my candied orange peel on white chocolate and chilled.
My orange peel should be cut into small chunks rather than in strips for the bark.
Quite divine!
Post a Comment