candied grapefruit peels
This all started with Homesick Texan. No wait, this all started with last year’s orangettes, to this day one of the most popular posts on this site. No wait, this all started with a lifelong (can you say that? when you’re just 31?) love of grapefruits. My favorite way to eat them is the same exact way my mom showed me, halved in a bowl with each section loosened with a arched, double-serrated grapefruit knife. First, I’d pop all of the sections into my mouth in probably under two minutes flat. But then, then came the “grapefruit soup,” I’d call it. Mom would help us scrape all of the residual grapefruit bits into the bowl, then squeeeze every last bit of juice, discard the empty shell of a peel and this, this my friends is the best grapefruit juice you’ll ever drink in your life. You must drink it straight from the bowl. I could live on it, and it alone.
Which brings us to the Homesick Texan, who mentioned in December that “everyone knows the juiciest, largest and sweetest ruby red grapefruit comes from the Rio Grande Valley” and it was funny, because I hadn’t known that at all. But given the price of the grapefruits we’d been seeing in the stores ($2 a pop), their sorry state (dented but still appallingly shiny with wax) and their flavor (average at best) I was just itching to find out. So, we ordered ourselves a little sampler from South Texas Organics and quite a few days later were presented with exactly what we were promised: the very best ruby red grapefruits, from South Texas.
But the coolest part was their sheen–there wasn’t one. Sans wax, pesticides and all the other you-don’t-want-to-know-whats they spray on most grapefruits, the peels beckoned me. I remembered how delicious those candied orange rinds were and had to go at it again. Using a Jacques Torres recipe as my guide, I boiled them four times. I candied them for two hours. I let them dry out on racks for another two. I rolled them in sugar. My apartment walls still smell dimly of grapefruit oil, and well, sadly, that might be the only good thing that came out of this experiment, save a few pretty photos.
They are inedibly bitter. I cannot swallow more than a bite. Even half of one and my face looks like one of those babies eating lemon (video removed, such a bummer!), plus or minus a few chin rolls and wrinkles. And I’m so sad about this, because, well, I had some high hopes. I had expected some level of bitterness greater than the oranges, hey, I know these are grapefruits afterall, but I hadn’t expected not to be able to get down a single one. And I love bitter things, as does Alex. But these, these didn’t work. So, if you have had any luck candying grapefruit peels, tell me your secrets, will you? I await your input with bated breath.
[Jacques Torres’ Candied Grapefruit Peel Recipe, for reference]
Other, more successful smittenkitchen.com citrus desserts:
- Orangettes
- Lemon Bars
- Key Lime Cheesecake
- Lemon Layer Cake
- Key Lime Tarts
- Whole Lemon Tart
- Orange-Chocolate Chunk Cake
- Lemon Pound Cake
- Grapefruit Yogurt Loaf Cake
One year ago: Asparagus, Artichoke and Shiitake Risotto
Weblog Awards! Today is the last day of voting for the 2008 Bloggies and smittenkitchen.com has been nominated in the photo category!
Darn. I had so hoped they’d be good. I LOVE grapefruit myself. My mom always said I was the only three year old she’d ever seen who LOVED grapefruit. Due to lack of time and quality grapefruits, I tend to buy it pre-sectioned in the refrigerated case, but I’m tempted to mail order some now …
At least the pictures are beautiful, right? I never thought I liked grapefruit until I tried it with Greek yogurt. Just cut those babies in half and pour on some lovely thick dairy goodness - delicious! Some may need honey, but not me. Maybe it means I’m getting bitter, but I like them straight-up, sans sugar. But they’re probably not as bitter as these pretty little peels.
I am sad to hear it’s the Torres recipe that let you down. If not him, then who has the magic trick to make these candied peels tasty??
sorry to hear it–I never would have guessed from the photos (they look pretty appetizing)
i candied lemon peels a few weeks ago and they were awful — glad i’m not alone!!!
How interesting! I’ve ‘candied’ (can I use it as a verb?:) orange peel before, but not grapefruit peels.
PS Did you manage to find curd cheese?
My father makes (delicious, non-bitter) candied grapefruit peel every Christmas, and his recipe says to remove all of the white pith from the peels with a paring knife to avoid bitterness. Otherwise the recipe is similar.
oddly, i like that not all of your recipes work.
it makes me actually believe you when you say something’s really good.
(and believe you even more when i try the recipe!)
better luck next time.
oh…i am so disappointed. i am infatuated with grapefruit and was looking forward to the end of the post where you tell us how delicious they were and how we can make them. but i guess not every recipe is a success. they look so pretty and delicious though. like they should be wrapped up and sold in a gourmet candy store.
Again, pith has crossed your path! 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. It makes a a world of difference - try it again!
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. I’m such a grapefruit lover myself and learned just the same techniques as you from my own mother. Sigh… Still, looks like Moriah has a viable suggestion so might try the recipe anyway… Never give up hope!!!
but they are SO beautiful! I must hope, dream that they taste delicious too!
Moriah and Rachel — Thanks for the advice. I might try that next time! Though we are currently out of grapefruits, sob.
Pille — My mother-in-law is going to the Russian Store (thanks for the pointer) to see if she can find some for me, and if she has no luck, I will join her on Saturday. I can’t wait. These cookies I want to make with it look so amazing!
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. in addition to making sure the white pith stays off (or gets scraped off) i seem to recall that they also suggested boiling the rind in a simple syrup. it took forever for them to dry, but they were definitely reminiscent of sunkist jelly candies and less like bitter sticks. i think it’s worth another shot!
Disappointment! They look so good, and I love grapefruit. Maybe you could poly them and use them as a festive holiday centerpiece.
I’ve never tried candying whole grapefruit peel like that before, but I have candied lemon rind and it came out darn tasty (and I think I only boiled twice). I’m with Moriah and Rachel on this one - the pith is your enemy. Scrape or cut it away, and you should be golden.
Us vs. Food
While I’ve not seen candied grapefruit rind per se I have seen a lot of grapefruit marmalade recipes this year, which are somewhat similar to candied peel.
I’ve successfully candied grapefruit peels — the recipe I use suggests both removing all the pith, as suggested above, as well as soaking the peels in salt water for at least a day (I do it for three days) before the boiling step. It works for lemon peels, too.
You should also try grapefruits from Pittman & Davis (pittmandavis.com). We order grapefruit from P&D for our family and friends every Christmas. It is to die for delicious! And also cheap.
mmmmmmmm…I wish it had worked out! The pictures look amazing! Funny how the original recipe says specifically not to remove the pith.
Did you really boil them 4 times? Man, that sounds like a lot of work!
These look so good! I wish they had worked for you. Oh well. Live, learn and cook again!
I wonder if candied grapefruit peel is an acquired taste. My grandfather loves them and we make them for him, but they are too bitter for me.
Another good grapefruit project for you to take on would be broiled grapefruit. Grapefruits drenched in Madeira and brown sugar under the broiler are delicious!
Sorry it didn’t work out . . . but three cheers to you for the bold experimentation! You never know if you never try, right?
While it is not candied grapefruit peel, this recipe for grapefruit pie from “Food on the Food” uses more zest than juice or fruit — if you are looking for ways not to waste that good organic peel. I haven’t tried it yet but think it looks amazing. http://www.foodonthefood.com/food_on_the_food/2008/01/winter-white.html
The candied peels look absolutely gorgeous (if not delicious) but it’s the grapefruit itself that’s making my mouth water! 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. My son has been eating whole grapefruits this way since he was 3!
Twice when I’ve made candied grapefruit peels, I kept boiling in water until I thought the bitterness was tolerable. So it turned out to be more than 4 times, and removing some of the pith does help. If you can get some tangerines (or mandarins?) that are organic and unwaxed, the peel on them would be mighty tasty if candied.
I second the Pittman and Davis grapefruits - my dad sends me a huge box of them every year for my birthday (near Thanksgiving). I generally spend the months of December, January, and February with grapefruit as my exclusive fruit choice, and I love it!
How excited was I when I saw this, I absolutely love grapfruit. 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!
I too have seen a lot of grapefruit marmalade recipes. I never tried to make a grapefruit marmalade, but I did try to make a pomelo marmalade, which is similar to grapefruits. I carved the white pith away, boiled 3 times, and once nearly finished, with high hopes, I tasted it. It was totally disgusting.
Heh. I’m just glad someone had the common sense to enlighten you about Rio Grande fruit. I’m from the Valley, and my grandmother owned a citrus orchard and sold most of her fruit in her own fruit stand. (Mom used to arrange the grapefruit in one corner of the bin to make a cradle for me while she worked.)
A shame those didn’t come out. I love the pictures, though. And now I think I’m going to go snag the last grapefruit that my brother brought over from his tree. ;)
ok yes, i’ll have that. please. pretty please. pretty pretty please.
I’m from Texas. Those are the grapefruits my grandmother used when she made candied fruit peel which is way faster than your method above. I’ve never done it any other way than I learned from her - remove all the pith, slice THIN (fat slices = not enough sweet to counteract the bitter). The slices in your photos are at least twice as wide as my gramma’s. Blanche once briefly in plain water. Then cook 15-20 minutes in a pot of simple syrup. Drain off most of the water (I put them on a cookie rack for a couple of minutes. Toss in a bowl of good, grainy sugar, then put in a slightly warm oven to dry. My gramma always used a mix of citrus and ALWAYS used pecans in the mix as well. For the pecans, you just dip roasted pecans in the simple syrup and toss in the sugar with the citrus peels.
I never made candied grapefruit peels but I did make some lemon and orange peels last year and I too removed all of the pith from the peel. They were deeelicious. (still a little bit bitter but not overwhelming)
I fussed around with the method I tried so don’t have any exact instructions except to say I agree with every one who said removing most of the pith is what ya need. (maybe?haha)
I actually removed the outer layer of citrus off with a vegetable peeler. A good sharp one. I had read recipes that said to scrape the pith away with a spoon which seemed backwards to me when you can just use a vegetable peeler.
The photos are pretty at least, maybe the candied grapefruit peels would be good in a recipe or something..?
well, they sure are purdy!
Did you remove the pith? It is hard to tell in the pictures, but they look pretty pith-y to me. Tangerines are really the only fruit that has a peel you can candy without a lot of pith removal.
I’ve always peeled and eaten grapefruit in sections, like an orange. On occasion, I’ll put a little sugar (a tsp would be more than enough) in a bowl and dip the section in the sugar before eating.
No wasted juice or pulp that way.
Wow, you blanched four times and it was still bitter, eek! My advice would definitely be to remove the pith. I usually slice my peel off the fruit while it’s still whole, leaving the white part still attached to the fruit. That way you can also trim and section the fruit nicely too. It’s the same process I use for making grapefruit marmalade.
Pink grapefruits are the best! 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).
well they sure did make pretty pictures! I bet they’d be nice as a drink garnish- maybe in a vodka tonic or something?
Grapefruit soup! That’s exactly how we ate grapefruit when we were kids! That was Mom’s method. Later I learned from Dad to peel them and eat them in whole sections, stripped of their membrane. Messy to be sure, but I always felt I got every burst of ruby goodness that way.
Always the best photos on your site!!
My face definitely fell when you said that this didn’t work. They look so GOOD!
But, like someone else said, it is nice to see a recipe not work our… it’s reassuring, we all need to know that it’s okay to experiment.
Grapefruit is wonderful and so are candied citrus peels, but it simply wasn’t meant to be.
If you have pretty rind left over, however… It might sound crazy, but throw them in the tub when you take a bath; your legs will tingle (which, given how cold it’s been lately is a good thing) and life will smell of grapefruit.
*goes to make Irish bread*
Those grapefruits look divine! Glad to see so many grapefruit-lovers out there. I’m currently saving up some oranges to try orangettes– I wonder if I de-pithed some grapefruit peel could I cook the two at the same time? BTW, that grapefruit yogurt cake was delicious– a total winner! I urge you all to try it immediately.
I had pretty good luck with the grapefruit peels I candied a few weeks ago… the first batch was a little sketchy, but Round 2 was fabulous. My only tricks were: very thin sections (thin almost to the point of being translucent *before* being cooked) and you know how if you were making orange peels, you might change the soaking/simmering water 2 or 3 times? Yeah. Try 6 or so times for grapefruits. They were still a tiny bit bitter, but no more so than if you were eating grapefruit flesh. Mmm. Grapefruit.
I am also completely in love with grapefruit, so when I saw this recipe, I just had to give it a try myself. I read through the comments and decided to remove the pith.
The peels turned out to be absolutely delicious! They’re like little grapefruit gummy candies! Thank you very much for sharing, and I hope that you have better luck next time (I’m sure that de-pithing makes a world of difference).
I made grapefruit peels with some success this Christmas. I wish I could give you a precise recipe, especially after so many good ones from you, but I can’t. I do know this: I cut big, ugly chunks of peel off the grapefruit, made the first boil 20 min long, then scraped off the pith with a spoon and sliced them more delicately. 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. As for drying, I put them on parchment and dried them in a very slow oven after shaking them in a ziplock with the additional sugar. The bit of remaining syrup was delicious over whole milk yogurt. Still, the orange peel candies disappeared first.
I appreciate your effort! My brother’s girlfriend and frequent commenter here turned me on to your site a few weeks ago. it’s great! I’m glad you include failures and successes…alot of cooking and well life is about the process. great pictures too!
This is my first comment on your site, but right off I should tell you how much I enjoy reading about your bold culinary attempts, and oh- the photos! I wonder if including honey in one of those blanching passes would have made a difference… I have heard of honey being used for candying fruit, although I’ve not tried it myself. I did recently make the apple-yogurt cake from your site and the oatmeal, choc chip, and pecan cookies. Both total successes. Thank you for bringing them into my repertoire!
I just wanted to tell you that your pictures drove me to order some of these gorgeous fruit from South Tex Organics for my mom’s birthday. So she gets a present, and of course I will get to try them too - score!
And I might have to try Jenya’s suggestion for a bath…
So happy to be ale to pass along this tip = you need to remove the cooked pith prior to poaching in the sugar syrup. Follow Torres’ recipe up to cutting the peel into quarters and removing the fruit for another use. Blanch the peel as directed WITHOUT cutting into small slivers.
After the last blanching, remove the peel and let cool until you can handle it. With a small spoon, scrape away the cooked pith, leaving just a small amount on the rind iteslf.Cut the peel into the desired size slivers and proceed as directed in the recipe. You won’t be disappointed!
Your strips are definitely much larger than I use–mine are usually about 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide, no larger. I’ve only ever boiled them three times, making sure to change the water three times (I used to use three pots when I was doing it in my mom’s giant kitchen, now I just change the water) and then I would make sure that you’ve really gotten the heat high enough in the candying–my mom always set 238 degrees as her marker. Also, we use 5 cups sugar to 5 cups water–2 1/2 doesn’t sound like nearly enough for the quantity of grapefruit, which certainly would explain the bitterness.
I made these! With the recipe you linked…I boiled them an extra time (5 times) & cut all of the pith off that I possibly could & they came out well…I guess it really was just all that bitter pith.
This was my attempt to recover from absolutely miserably FAILING when making your lemon layer cake. Whew, did I mess that up. Boiled eggs in the lemon curd, bits of my pan in the icing…it was for my bf & it was our anniversary, so I figured I better make up for the awful cake by candying his absolutely favorite fruit!
Thanks so much for all the beautiful pictures to guide me!
The pictures alone were well worth the effort, I’d say. Good luck with the Bloggies!
How fun; I have been CRAVING grapefruit and candied citrus… what funny timing. I have a dented, well-waxed grapefruit sitting solely on my counter, looking back at me. And all I know is, it isn’t from Rio Grande. (Though I will still be slurping the juice straight from the bowl).
Whoa! Those are some gorgeous photos. What kind of camera do you use because your pictures are always gorgeous. This reminds me why I like cara cara navels so much!
you didnt remove the white pith…thats what made them bitter.
I haven’t tried it myself, but I know it can be done - I had a really piece of good candied grapefruit on a “proper greyhound” cocktail at the Hungry Cat in Santa Barbara last summer (highly recommend, btw!) I think the secret might be to shave all the white stuff off and do them in wider, thinner strips- that’s how theirs were. Still, the photos look like the mass of the sugar involved must have been as much as the peel by the time you were done - it’s hard to believe they’re inedible!
Actually, I had a really GOOD piece of candied grapefruit peel! Jeez. Proofread for once.
I’m so sorry you can’t have all the grapefruit you want to eat from your local grocery. Here in Texas, the Rio Stars are my favorite. I had one this morning that was a “3 napkin” fruit, because it was so very juicy. They are currently priced at 3 for a dollar. I too am disappointed that the recipe failed, because I love all things grapefruit.
on the nytimes website they had a mark bittman video for glacé oranges. he boiled the oranges (flesh, skin, pith and all) for 8 hrs in sugar water before dumping out all the liquid and refilling it with more sugar water and boiling it for 8 more hours and repeating at least one more time, so all together it would be 24hrs. i tried it with just orange peels and about 16 hrs and one change of syrup, and it still had some bite but still good. i food processor them into small bits and use them in a pound cake. i think you can try re-boiling the grapefruit peels in a new batch of sugar syrup for 8hrs, that might get rid of some more bitterness.
Good luck with the awards… I loved this post.
The bitterness is on the white part of the peel so you have to remove it. When I was doing an internship at the restaurant Chez Panisse we boiled the peel in big chunks until knife tender. Once cooled we removed most of the white part with a spoon (at this point the peel is very tender), cut them in nice strips and only then we would candy the peel in sugar.
If you would like more detailed info let me know.
Laura
This post (and the Candy Girl post) was fantastic! I tried it out today with oranges, limes, and grapefruit. I blanched them all together twice, then pulled out the grapefruit and de-pithed it, and then blanched the limes and grapefruit together again, and then again de-pithed the grapefruit (the pith gets puffy after each blanching), and then blanched the grapefruit one more time for good measure. I did the rest of the steps following the Candy Girl post’s recipe, and it was EXQUISITE. Some I candied with sugar and some I dipped in dark chocolate, but they were all so, so delicious. And gorgeous, to boot. I did the limes on a lark, but was surprised by how well they turned out (they were especially fabulous in the dark chocolate). Thanks so much!
They look gorgeous! Sorry they didn’t taste as good as they look.
If you like candied peel, I personally LOVED candied tangerines and tangellos my mother and I made. Our recipe (which I would have to look up as I have no memory for receipes) doesn’t involve boiling 4 times. We just really scraped all the white pith off our tangerines and oranges with a spoon — OR in some cases just used a carrot peeler on the whole thing. This a little elbow grease saved us an hour or two compared to your recipe, I think. The peels are thinner and also candy much faster.
If you feel like re-attempting the grapefruit peels, I recommed just scraping all the white pith off and/or using a carrot peeler for very thin slivers. I can’t recall if my mom and I ever candied grapefruit, but we candied a LOT of various peels and some of them were VERY sour. I seem to recall some sour oranges were quite good too. I suspect part of the problem with the recipe above is that grapefruit pith is thicker than orange pith.
Forgot to add: if you take a carrot peeler to the whole grapefruit, you can save the grapefruit for eating later by putting it in the fridge or wrapping it in plastic.
Putting grapefruit in the tub can be a BAD idea for sensitive skin. I’ve gotten painful and long-lasting rashes from citrus fruit, to the point where I immediately wash off any citrus juice that gets on me. A Florida dermatologist said this is a very common reaction particularly for thinner skin that isn’t normally exposed (I got it on the underside of my arm)
I’m from Texas and I have to admit I didn’t know that ruby red grapefruits from Texas were the best…or, at least, I didn’t even think about the fact that other people didn’t have them. Too bad they didn’t turn out, could’ve been good dipped in chocolate. I just wanted to say I’m a huge fan of your blog…it’s one of my standby’s (i have a blog too, still in it’s beginning phases more or less, http://thedoughball.blogspot.com/)
Dear smitten lady,
I love grapefruit too, and we are partial to “desert” (really, dessert!) ruby grapefruit grown in the Coachella Valley, where we live and farm… dates and citrus! including grapefruit. I made up a big batch of candied grapefruit over the weekend and I haven’t been able to stop eating it… kind of a problem with all that sugar! The recipe I recommend, which I had good success with, is from Alice Waters’s new book The Art of Simple Food. 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. ;) Haven’t read through the rest of your site yet but if you’re ever curious, don’t hesitate about her recipe. It works. Sounds much simpler than J. Torres’s. And, if you ever want to try our grapefruit, please let me know! Our grapefruit is awfully sweet…. haven’t tried those Rio ones yet though. xox
It really is too bad the taste did not complement the beautiful pictures. I do think you should give this recipe one more try, but completely remove the pith. I’ve also candied mandarin orange peels. I had to scrape the pith completely before candying. Otherwise it turns out bitter also.
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. For some folks, this is the hardest thing in the world, and for others, the most natural. But the more you do, the easier it becomes…
I’m just a bit sad for the smitten kitchen because this bitter pith citrus disaster follows so closely on the clementine clafouti affair–which was also about the perils of pith. If only you had tasted the peel before the final sugaring, you might have remembered the pithy tips folks gave you over there! Best of luck with the next citrus affair!
Hey everyone–After 23 comments about removing the pith, rest assured, we know exactly what to do next time.
‘Tis a shame that the Jacques Torres recipe we followed didn’t mention this–because we’ve been to his shop and we know he knows how to do it correctly, that is, pith-free–but it’s great to see that everyone is so enthusiastic on the topic.
If anyone has any peel-candying suggestions that haven’t yet been mentioned, we are still all ears.
Is there any reason that the zest part of the rind couldn’t be removed right at the start with a veggie peeler? Thereby leaving all the pith on the grapefruit and starting with only the pith-free rind?
I use a lot of citrus zest in homemade booze and this is how I acquire my zest. I imagine that the pith would be very bitter in the booze.
Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons after everything seems to have been resolved….
For Xmas presents I used the recipe at Cooking Debauchery ( http://tinyurl.com/2cwc98 ) which said to leave the pith and also to boil the peel five times (I hink I actually did 6 times) and it turned out lovely.
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. Cover with cold water and repeat as necessary. The thick pith kept the finished peel succulent, and it was not at all bitter.
When I tried with thin-pith’d fruit, after the candying stage, they dried out to be very brittle. :(
I made/tried this last night. I boiled the peel in quarter sections (without scraping the white/pith off) four times, changing the water with each boil round. I let the peels cool then carefully scraped the pith off with a paring knife. I looked at the pile of sludge and thought…hmm: jam. Uh, after tasting…definite NO…all that bitterness is INDEED in the pith. I cut the quarters into thin strips. For the the last boil/simmer with sugar, I added a couple pomegranate tea bags because, as the process was going along, I thought I wanted them to be more a lovely pink and this actually worked (!). But then I remembered about the tannins in tea and I think I may have tanned my peels (kidding - maybe). They turned out DEElicious but are quite…ahem…limp.
Grapefruit gloves anyone?
I rolled a couple dozen in fruit sugar and then dipped in 70% dark chocolate (on half the strip).
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.
The undipped remainder *really zingy nice* will be eaten straight or added to other dishes.
I have candied grapefruit rind, and mine were bitter as well, but there is a happy ending! I couldn’t bear to throw the candied peels away. I kept trying them hoping that all my work hadn’t gone to waste, and sure enough, a month or so later, they stopped being bitter. I don’t know exactly why. I stored them in the refrigerator between layers of waxed paper and they kept fine. After they’d “aged,” the peels were just as delicious as I had hoped they would be. Mine weren’t as cringingly bitter as yours seem to be, however. I used a recipe that involved boiling the peels in several changes of water. I just got a windfall of homegrown grapefruit and was hoping to candy the peels again. I’m going to try boiling it more thoroughly this time.
I’ve made candied grapefruit rind for years, for Christmas presents for my father. 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. But it is an acquired taste. It’s not as sweet (despite the tons of sugar) as other candied rinds.
I don’t remove any of the pith, but the trick she used that I’ve never seen elsewhere was to gently twist the peel after cutting into strips to release the oil in the skin. 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
it was a kitchen science experiment: if I put this orange peel in to the jar will it candy?
It did and was yum
This looks fantastic. Oh - and I made these for a party — TRY THEM: Chocolate Covered Grapes (recipe from epicurious) Brilliant and easy.
Grapefruit strips - they look absolutely scrumptious. You’re pics are so colorful, almost real, well done!
Nina
Hi!
I just came across your website in Real Simple magazine– congrats on the mention. I’m trying to make cooking a bigger part of my life & I’ve already been inspired by a mere glimpse of your work!
As for this recipe, Mark Bittman posted a video segment on orange confit on the NYTimes website. There is also a text-only version on the recipe online. I’m pretty sure it involves hours of simmering orange slices (peel and all) in sugar water, but it supposedly turns into a sugary treat– sans-bitterness! Might work for your grapefruits! I suspect that if you follow the recipe perfectly, you might lose some of the zing we both know and love about grapefruits, so you’d probably have to experiment to keep just the right amount of tart!
If nothing else, you’ll have more wonderful pictures!
Good luck!
Phil
Here’s that link for Orange Confit!
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=abf9a20fab633fe5e0819d8d2320fb9981b67372
i remember reading in a book that to make the best candied pomelo peels, one had to use pomelos that were on the verge of ripening. such a waste. since the pomelo and the grapefruit are very close cousins, maybe that’s a trick?
Ah! They look beautiful anyway. They could prettify any dessert! I guess they were made to have supporting roles.