I love to make things. And for me, cooking fits into the do-it-yourself category. Maybe not all the time, but at least some of the time.
A few months ago, Martha Stewart on Martha Bakes decorated her orange cupcakes with candied orange slices. They looked so gorgeous. I thought I would like to try to make some decorative citrus slices. Finally I had an opportunity this week.
In my book club, we take turns hosting our monthly meeting. Hosting means serving dinner and providing drinks. Thankfully, hosting is only once or maybe twice a year. Thank goodness, because it’s a lot of work. But it’s fun too.
For the main course, I made Hungarian goulash because one of the key characters in the book we read, The Immortalists, was named after her Hungarian grandmother. And she emulated her grandmother’s life, or at least her profession: a magician and performer. Everyone seemed to love my goulash. Yay!
Since I was making a rather heavy and spicy main course, I thought I would make a light dessert. I decided to make a lemon tart, and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to decorate the tart with candied lemon slices.
This is how you do it.
There are only a couple of ingredients: sugar, water and lemons.
Don’t forget to wash your lemons first.
If you have a mandolin, you can use that to make thin slices with whichever citrus fruit you decide to use. I was using a lemon. Unfortunately, the mandolin that Jeff bought me a few years ago at Williams Sonoma never worked very well in spite of the fact that it was very expensive. We should have returned it, but we thought maybe it was our fault. I may get an inexpensive one, and see if I do any better. So instead of using a mandolin, I cut thin slices with a sharp knife. Next time, I will aim to make the slices more uniform in thickness. Then I removed the seeds.
It is simple to candy citrus slices. Make simple syrup: a 1:1 solution of sugar water. I used one cup of sugar in one cup of water. I put the water into a 2 quart saucepan and added a cup of sugar. I stirred the sugar and water to combine, and I turned the heat to onto medium/medium high and cooked it till it came to a boil.
Next I put the slices into the saucepan in a single layer. I had about 9 slices. I turned the heat down to simmer and simmered the slices for about 10-15 minutes, till the slices – in particular the pith under the skin – turned translucent.
Then I removed the slices and placed them on a rack with a paper towel underneath to catch the drips. I let the slices dry a bit, but I wanted them to be dry and hard, so they would look like stained glass. I put the rack with foil underneath it in an oven set at 175 degrees and left the lemon slices in the oven for about 2 hours. In the photo below, you can see that the slices look translucent.
And that’s it! Once they cooled, I put them in a plastic container with parchment paper between the layers and kept them in the refrigerator till I needed them a couple of days later.
Even though the graham cracker crust on my lemon tart caved in a bit when I took it out of the tarn pan, it still looked pretty with its candied lemon slice decorations. And the tart tasted good too!
Next time, I will make more candied slices so I can choose the best looking ones to use. But I think it came out well enough for the first time making them.
Have you ever made candied citrus slices?
thanks for sharing. very easy to make indeed
Thank you so much for sharing this, Allison! It looks delicious!
This is so cool. You impress me with your cooking skills. I learned long ago that imperfections are perfectly fine so the graham cracker crust cracking a bit just makes it seem more homemade. I’ve read The Immortalist and thought it was a good read.
Thank you, Marcia! One of the women in my book club said the same thing about imperfections. You both make me feel better about it! Glad to hear that you read The Immortalists too. I thought the concept was brilliant, and I enjoyed reading about a Jewish family on the Lower East Side with kids who were just a few years younger than I when I came to NYC for college around that time. My reactions to the individual stories and how their lives “played out” varied, but all in all, I thought it was a good read too.
Awesome, it looks so pretty! I admire your ambition!
They’re such a pretty addition! I’ve never made them, but I love that it really is an easy process.