Using orange, lemon or grapefruit zest is a great way to incorporate the essence of that fruit into any food or dessert that you are making. Most of the stores here carry candied versions of neon colored fruit that are usually taken out during the Holidays to be included in batches of homemade fruit cakes…but that’s not the real thing.
Growing up in Australia, fruit cake which is also called ‘rich’ cake , is very common and still served at many functions. Surprisingly enough, it is still the wedding cake of choice.
One thing is different though in fruit cakes made abroad…they use great quality dried fruits and zest, none of this neon colored stuff that we use here in the USA….they use dried currants, larger plumper raisins, dried cherries, figs, dates, plums and the taste is very different.
Real candied zest is very hard to find here and when you do find it, it’s very expensive…so why not make your own, it’s SUPER easy!
All you need is the zest of a few pieces of fruit and some concentrated sugar syrup…that’s it! So follow the instructions below and you can have candied zest of any kind at the ready for any of your baked goods, to add on top of your ice cream or to simply use as garnish for your plated desserts. Or, you can be just like me and use the fragrant zest to munch on with a little drizzled chocolate…heaven.
Candied Zest (makes 3-4 tablespoons of zest)
1 large orange
1 small lemon (I added this but you don’t have to)
¼ cup sugar
2-3 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon corn syrup (prevents crystallization)
Use a channel knife to take the zest off the fruit…it will make your life so much easier. It looks like this…
Add the sugar, water and corn syrup to a small pot and heat well until the sugar has melted, then add the zest and wait until the syrup comes to a boil.
Let it boil for 1 minute with the zest in it and remove from the heat. Let this cool completely and then remove the zest from the syrup by straining everything through a fines sieve. Spread the zest out onto a tray lined with parchment paper and allow this to dry overnight covered with plastic. Reserve the liquid.
You do not have to add additional granulated sugar over this but you can if you like. The concentrated sugar syrup will create a perfect candied exterior once the syrup has dried but if you would like more of that sugary effect then you can always add more…
Once the candied zest has dried overnight, you can then chop up the dried strands into tiny pieces of zest that will be perfect in any baked product.
Leave a Reply