Are you looking for a special treat that is also a blend of both sweet and bitter? You have one in this candied grapefruit peel.
If you have never tried this delightful, citrusy, sweet but candied grapefruit peel, you will be amazed at how great and delicious they get.
If you want, you can eat them as they are, thus making them the perfect addition to your meal course.
I know you may think, well, where will you get the citrusy fruit, and the good thing is that you will almost always have them year-round.
I like to take the whole of my fruit, but when I have such ideas as this one, I will leave the rind part to try it too.
Most people only use the rinds to make the marmalade, but you can also use them to make the candied peel.
Recently I made the candied grapefruit peel. Now I’m inviting you to try the recipe with me.
Before we get started, it’s important to mention that if you follow this recipe to the latter, you can also use it with other citrus fruits.
A candied grapefruit peel features the peels that they use the sugar to sweeten and thus make it into a dessert. In this case, though, we are talking of the grapefruit peel.
If you do not like to throw away any part of the foods, then this is going to serve you. of course, this will make the perfect bittersweet combo.
Try out this easy recipe we have here
Ingredients:
- One grapefruit,
- Salt content,
- 100 grams of caster sugar,
- 500 grams of water.
Process:
Please clean it
The very first step you have to take care of is to clean all its parts. Let’s not just assume that it’s already cleaned.
In most cases, I scrub the fresh grapefruit repeatedly scrub the grapefruit with an alkaline salt. The impurities on the epidermis are rubbed off and rinsed with water.
You have a clean fruit as below that you are even ready to start using to make the fruit.
Scrape off the skin
Use a scraper to scrape off the skin of the grapefruit thinly, and don’t bring out the white part.
Some people decide to cut the whole grapefruit into parts first and then start to peel off its parts.
Note you aren’t interested or cutting out the white part because it’s often the bitter part of the fruit.
You want to have the one with a balanced sweetness with just a little bitterness.
I trust in peeling my fruit lengthwise to give you the perfect shape to make and easily hold.
Slice it further
Use scissors to cut into smaller pieces. It is OK to cut with a knife, either in slices or strips.
Although you are making the candied grapefruit, you must make it appealing too. Just shape them further but don’t spend too much time with the fruit peels.
Set the peels in a clean non-reactive saucepan to start the process.
Place the grapefruit peels in a saucepan pot. I like to use the heavy bottom option of the pot. Next, add some water to the saucepan.
Allow the water to reach about an inch from the saucepan bottom. Go on to add the 50 grams of white sugar.
Set the saucepan to high heat.
Allow it to boil on high heat, and when ready, you should reduce the heat. Next, simmer for about half an hour on medium-low heat.
This is going to aid in the coating of the sugar to the peeling surface. You aim to make sure it attains the perfect level of sweetness from the sugar.
Keep simmering it
Boil until transparent. The sugars you had, in this case, will reserve the peels flavors. With time you will have the peels perfectly soft and translucent, and when this happens, it’s all ready.
The syrup that then remains is going to be nicely thick. It would help if you collected the syrup on high heat.
Also, expect the peels to look as shown in the following image. The whole process will take you about 2 hours.
Confirm that each peel is covered in sugar
Each piece is crystal clear and completely wrapped in sugar juice. It would help if you had something close to the image you have below.
You can use a wire rack to drain off all the excess water if you need to. I mean, it’s all that easy to make the recipe.
Place the boiled grapefruit peel on a baking tray.
Now it’s all just nicely ready, so you want to take it to the next step. Cover your baking tray with parchment paper and then spread it out on the baking sheet.
And again, you will need to bake the peels at about 50 degrees and bake for 20 minutes. This method will give it the final drying, but also, then it will cook perfectly.
Sugar it then
After the elapse of the cooking time, the surface of the roasted grapefruit peel is still moist. Now you want to give it a final sugar wash.
So add 50 grams of white sugar and stir to make the sugar evenly stick to the grapefruit peel.
With this, then it‘s all ready to eat.
In other instances, you don’t need to bake it. If you have time, then you can let the candied peels rest on the wire rack for hours.
With this then it will gently get rid of the candied syrup. And of course, when it’s then fully drained, you are ready for the last step.
The best way to go about this is usually to set the peels in a bowl with granulated sugar for the final touch.
If you want it to get even better, you can use the method to dip it into the bittersweet chocolate. Remember, such will give it an even better chocolaty flavor.
Lastly, you can set the peels in the bowl and then serve them ready. If not, then remove them and set them in an air-tight container for storage.
Tip:
- When peeling the grapefruit, remember that you don’t need the white part. Don’t even bother to cut the white part.
- If you notice that you still have the grapefruit peels being wet, you should set them on the baking tray, and then the oven will make it easy to dry them.
- The boiled grapefruit peel is very sticky and should be separated when placed in the baking tray. You don’t want it to clump together.
- If there is no oven, no worries, you will still have the candied grapefruit peels. You can place them in a ventilated place for a while.
- The finished grapefruit candies are sealed and stored. Remember, if you then store it right in the air-tight container, you can have it serve you for more than three months. If you don’t like to store it, then you should eat it within the first week. I find that it’s best in the first week.
How to eat the grapefruit peel?
Of course, they make the perfect dessert recipe that is also very easy to make. Here you, therefore, have a delicious way to complete your meal course. So eat them as we have finished it off here.
It’s ready for you to eat it as it is. Alternatively, you can do the following.
You can give it a chocolate coating.
Another one of the easiest methods you can use is setting the peels in the chocolate coating. My family likes it with the chocolate coating.
So, of course, you can skip the sugar coating step, that’s after you have drained the excess liquid.
You can either dip them into the bittersweet chocolate sugar or dip them into the melted chocolate. So then, you can insert the grapefruit peel into the chocolate sauce.
I know not many people will like the chocolate sauce, but it can make the perfect addition to your delicious meals.
Before you place the peels on the parchment paper, wipe out the excess.
Now it works by tempering the chocolate. Of course, this means you will melt it to retain the gloss as it hardens to make it glossy, but it will not be whitish.
So then you can let the chocolate candies then cool down before you start to eat them.
The tips and the tricks
The air-drying method will take you about 24hrs to 48hours to fully dry out. But of course, when you want to speed up the process, you should set it in the oven.
Notice that you can cut it as wide or narrow as you would like to have it. Remember though; you shouldn’t cut the peels too thin as that will not make the best-candied peels.
Can I make the candied peel with any other peel?
You can make the candied peel with most of the citric fruits. They will have the thick peels that you can make to the candied peel dessert.
Will you make it?
This can make one of the best grapefruit candied peels. If you want a dessert meal, then consider making this grapefruit peel. It’s one of the most significant types of candied grapefruit peels.