I was going to try Use Real Butter’s method for candied orange peels to do grapefruit this year, but after reading about your troubles, I’m going to stick with the lengthy, but reliable method. Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons after everything seems to have been resolved…. I cover the peels with cold water and boil. I adore Oroblanco for a refreshing Vietnamese salad so buying some to candy was not a difficult decision. I have also dipped these in melted chocolate. Zoom meet-up with Asian American cookbook authors. Well, I’m off to peel some grapefruits… I blanched 3 times then simmered in sugar syrup for about 30-40 minutes then dried. I also did 5 cup of sugar to my 2 cups of water. It may take more than the four boiling cycles you are using. First, I’d pop all of the sections into my mouth in probably under two minutes flat. So happy to be ale to pass along this tip = you need to remove the cooked pith prior to poaching in the sugar syrup. 2019 Thank you so much. Once you’ve got the rinds, you simply slice them, blanch them to soften and remove some of the bitterness of the white pith (but not all of it, since that’s a nice quality that grapefruit peels have), then cook the peels in a sugar syrup while gazing at your candy thermometer, which’ll kindly let you know when the peels are done. My daughter said, just yesterday, that she thought one had to grow up eating crystallized grapefruit peel to really enjoy it. So what I have is happy delicious little sticks of pink grapefruit peel with a chocolate handle and the top half swinging in the wind. Hosted by Penguin Random House. Regular pomelo will work, too. I’m trying to make cooking a bigger part of my life & I’ve already been inspired by a mere glimpse of your work! Reply, The corn syrup helps keep the candied peel supple. Then once they’re made you can dip half of each piece in bittersweet chocolate or chop them up and put them in her excellent biscotti recipe. Even though I sulkily acknowledge what you said about the difficulties of doing a candy book, I would buy the heck out of one from you! I also knew that writing a book of recipes that involves precise measurements in two different systems of measurement would erode what little seems left of my brain. So, as always, it’s good to keep an open mind and assume that people are doing their best, even if your (or their) mind isn’t what it used to be. on the nytimes website they had a mark bittman video for glacé oranges. Your strips are definitely much larger than I use–mine are usually about 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide, no larger. My mom candies the fruit of several citrus fruits, including bitter orange-which is rrrrrreally bitter! I loved them! I’ve also candied mandarin orange peels. If you are going to eat them off of your partner during some sexy fun time, maybe slice them into rings? Milk Street Kitchen Best Cookbook Gifts I didn’t remove extra pith or anything. Every hour or so, or at least ten times within the day, you need to change the soaking water. Sometimes i refresh the syrup when i see it getting low. Cut the grapefruit rinds into strips about 1/4-inch, or slightly less. 2. Not bitter at all. So I got this post and recipe all ready to go, but before I pushed the Publish button, I used the search engine on the blog to find some posts I wanted to link to here and found that there already was a recipe for candied grapefruit peels. I don’t know if it makes a difference but he claimed that to draw acid or bitter tastes out you have to start cold. I haven’t tried it yet but think it looks amazing. Wow, you blanched four times and it was still bitter, eek! I’m just glad someone had the common sense to enlighten you about Rio Grande fruit. For our fifth boil, you are going to add the two cups of sugar along with the water. It is important to let the peel boil for only 30 seconds before draining and rinsing – this means rinsing the peel AND the pan – for the bitter oils cling to the sides of the pan and the draining peel otherwise. Marmalade, for example? I just candied some peel and used them in shortbread cookies. I don’t know what I did. Grapefruit strips – they look absolutely scrumptious. The undipped remainder *really zingy nice* will be eaten straight or added to other dishes. I love grapefruit “soup” as you call it but I make it by cutting off the peel with a knife then removing each segment of grapefruit, as you would for a salad or something, and squeezing all the remaining juice into the bowl with the grapefruit. This is about the time of year I break out the reserved syrup I’ve been keeping for sweetening my warm weather iced tea. I’ve been craving these candied grapefruit peels for the longest time and I just found your blog. Laughing to myself, I figured I’d posted the recipe six or seven years ago, but looking at the date of the post, it was less than two years ago. I hope you do try them again because they are so good! Again, pith has crossed your path! Dump this into the strainer and roll each piece in granulated sugar and dry on cookie sheet or waxed paper. Hope this wasn’t beating a dead horse :}. Working on batches, place a handful of the candied peels in the bowl of sugar and toss to coat them thoroughly. don’t worry if they are limp as the sugar will toughen them. A shame those didn’t come out. Disappointment! I forget things all the time, but I blame it on a full brain. They’re boiled once in water, then cooked again in syrup. I am enjoying your new book “Drinking French”. (still a little bit bitter but not overwhelming) Bring to a boil and then SIMMER slowly for 3 hours until you see the rinds basically sitting in a syrup. The thing is, to have success as a cook, you have to be willing to do three things: taste as you go; trust your gut if something doesn’t taste right; and finally, be wiling to stop when it doesn’t taste right, think about why that might be, and then try to move away from what the recipe is saying to figure out what you might need to change to get the result you want. the bitter is from the pith (and for grapefruit its REALLY bitter!) I can’t find it and I’m really confused because they were totally edible… or maybe I just really like bitter things. whew, glad I read the post before commenting because I was going to gush on and on about how much I love you for thinking to candy grapefruit peels. Then I do the simmering in the syrup for 30-40 minutes, remove it from the heat, put a tight fitting lid on it, and let it rest at room temp for 24 hrs. This post (and the Candy Girl post) was fantastic! I’m from Texas. I simmered this for about 30 minutes, strained out the grapefruit, and carefully whisked in a tempered egg yolk. After you use the citrus fruit, whether it be by juicing or something else, you'll need to scrape out all remaining fruit with a spoon. After cooling, I found coating the slices in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar is amazing! You can chop them up and fold them into ice cream, but they’re better eaten on their own, just as is. The following day, put the remaining 3/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl. Maybe it was the variety? I roll them in superfine sugar as my regular sugar has super large crystals. I’ve made these before with one small exception: after the initial boiling in water, I scraped away all the bitter white stuff with a teaspoon, leaving the peel about 1/4 inch thick. Whoa! Did you remove the pith? 8. Then you boil it in several changes of water until it doesn’t have the strong grapefruit peel smell; I usually do at least 4. once I tried to candy orange peel by just chucking it into what ever was handy, which was sugar that the ants had got to and I was cleaning up by putting into a honey jar with a bit of honey left in it. [Jacques Torres’ Candied Grapefruit Peel Recipe, for reference]. I followed the recipe posted at BonAppetite.com exactly as written (3 blanching boils in water, then a final boil in sugar syrup and let simmer on med-low till the rinds turn translucent). Good God, I’ll shut up now. Reply, Made candied grapefruit peels yesterday and since I eat grapefruit everyday in the winter months it didn’t take long to accumulate the rinds. The candied Ruby Red grapefruit peel had a stronger, bitterness than the Oroblanco peel. I bet they’d be nice as a drink garnish- maybe in a vodka tonic or something? Here in Texas, the Rio Stars are my favorite. Reply. I used his mother’s recipe (she died long before I was born), and never really had inedibly bitter peel – tangy, yes, but bitter, no. Oh, dont’ take the pith off! I used to eat them every day for breakfast when I was a kid, and I made “grapefruit soup” too (although I poured it back into the emptied grapefruit peel, because I thought it was cool to use that as a bowl). There are umpteen varieties of each fruit which will behave differently so, before starting the last stages, taste a little to find out how much ‘personality’ is left! I want to share my improved technique that my NANA did every year when grapefruits were plentiful. The grapefruit peel’s flavor lingers on your palate fora while. I only boiled (but again for more than 10 minutes) and dumped once more, then washed the pot, and did the sugar syrup thing, boiling the syrup in until it was nearly gone. Dump the measured peel into pot again and add sugar to equal measured peel. They look so good, and I love grapefruit. For a fun experiment, I bought one Ruby Red from the supermarket. Such a bummer it didn’t work but thanks for the effort and the heads up on the grapefruit website, I’ll definately give that a try! Roll peel in sugar and then let them take up as much sugar as possible before wrapping in wax paper. should i have used this method instead and included the pith? Also, without the pith, you can boil it just once, then simmer in simple syrup (water+sugar) for about half an hour, then let it sit in the syrup at least 6 hours (I usually just do it overnight because its easier). I used the juice for curd that I made into tartlets and topped with Chantilly Cream and a candied orange peel. I didn’t blanch them at all, but just boiled them down for about an hour, hour and a half in half a cup of sugar and a cup and a half of water. We would add some, then take off the extra, and repeat many times. Place the peels back in the pot. i tried candying orange peel one christmas to make florentines (the world’s most time-consuming cookie) and i found the directions on allrecipes.com to be quite helpful. Later I learned from Dad to peel them and eat them in whole sections, stripped of their membrane. Diagonally cut pieces of peel into 1/3-inch-wide strips. Arrange ten 3-inch fluted tartlet molds on a table.