How to make orangettes: Slice ends off four oranges, score the peel from one end to the other, and remove the peels from the oranges.
Slice the peels into thin strips and trim the edges.
Using a medium size pot, place the peels in boiling water and blanch them for a few minutes. Rinse the peels, and repeat this process a second time. This is done to remove the bitterness of the peels.
Prepare the simple syrup by combining 8 ounces water with 8 ounces sugar in a saucepan. Bring the syrup to a simmer, place the peels in the pot, and simmer for 1 hour. [Don’t do what Deb did, and not check on them, only to find that at 45 minutes the water had boiled off and many edges had begun to burn in the pan, and she wished she’d left the pot covered.] Once the peels have cooked, remove them from the pot, and place on a rack to cool and drain.
Melt 16 ounces dark chocolate over a double boiler. Dip the candied orange peels in the chocolate, remove them quickly, and let them cool on a piece of parchment paper. Store the orange peels in an airtight container your belly.
Recipe adapted from here.
Another way to make sure everything will be alright, even if you become occupied elsewhere, is to make more simple syrup than you need.
It’s ok to mostly cover the pot, but not until the simple syrup has “cleared” = when you see no more sugar granules.
Blanching beforehand also opens up the pores of the orange peel, so that it can recive the syrup later. With grapefruit I will sometimes blanch 3 times.
I always wondered what were in those!
I am de-lurking to tell you that you are my favorite person in the whole world (at least at this exact moment). I have only been reading your site for a few weeks and am officially obsessed. I plan to make a few of your recipes for thanksgiving.
Chocolate covered orange peels and chocolate covered orange slices are my absolute favorite, I think I could live off of them. If you have a good recipe for orange slices I would love to see it since mine seems to be hit and miss and sometimes the slices end up too bitter. I’ll definitely be trying these sometime this week.
Thank you.
Wow, you are killing me here! I´m so doing these, but either later or like just an orange and inviting people over lol Self-control? What is that?
Happy thanksgiving to all Americans, by the way. A great time to cook, eat like a pig and be with the family :)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!! You just solved the “But what if someone doesn’t want pumpkin or pecan pie” dilema! Deb, YOU ROCK!!!!!
Hi Deb. I’ve been reading your blog since before it was in ivillage. Anyway, I have a question that does not relate to this fabolous recipe but I still have to ask and you seem very knowledgeable: I found this amazing recipe that required sherry so I went and bought a bottle of cream sherry (the guy at the store said that was better). The thing is, foolish me…I lost the recipe! Do you have any recipes in your collection that call for sherry by any chance?
Thanks!!! I think you can tell I don’t cook that much.
The recipe I’ve been laboring under for years involved soaking the peels overnight and then blanching them FOUR (count them, four!) times…do you think this is really necessary? Yours look lovely with perhaps a third of the labor. I like making candied Meyer lemon peels too.
Soaking overnight and blanching four times definitely isn’t necessary. I have made them before with zero soaking and just blanching twice for a long minute each and the results have been delicious.
Those look incredible! I think I’ll have to put together a batch for my husband.
Oh, I do like your idea to store them in your belly the best!!
My mom made candied grapefruit peel one year. They were really heavenly but sooo labor intensive, she never did it again. I’d like to try these and then try with grapefruit.
Thanks smitten! It’s great to have found you!!
I love it! Store the orange pieces in your belly. I can think of no other place for it to be, than sitting in my stomach keeping the fudge I made company. :D
Ok, I have to admit that I don’t like chocolate and orange together but I love making orangettes for favors during the holidays. I love how well you describe the process and I love the quality of your pictures! Beautiful post.
Hello again,
I was enchanted by your pictures and the simplicity that I tried making these tonight but the zest part was tough and chewy. Any pointers on what went wrong?
That picture of the orange is spectacular. It shimmers with light and color.
This is my all time favorite candy — and it isn’t easy to find outside of specialty stores. While I am a bit intimidated, I might actually try making this.
Do you have a receipe for chocolate covered orange slices ?
shuna – Thank you! This was my very first time making these, and the very first recipe I grabbed (Smart, eh?) so I’m far from an expert. Question: Do you need to boil fresh water for each batch or can you rinse and then boil them in the original? I used fresh water for each boiling, but of course, this was time-consuming.
Kirs – Le voila! Isn’t it great that you can just eat orange peels, albeit with loads of sugar.
Maytal – I’ll look out for recipes for orange slices. I’m not much of a candy maker at all, but I realize a lot of people are putting together home baked gift bags this time of year, so it might be time for me to try some stuff out.
Marce – I made just one orange worth of peels, too, as I didn’t need a pound of them around! I was just curious.
Married Girl – Glad you liked. Just to note, next time I think I’d boil the peels first three times instead of two. They’re not too bitter, but they could be a little softer, I think.
Ro – I usually just mainline the stuff. Er, just kidding. Mostly – have you tried it in coffee? Splashed into French toast batter? I have a recipe coming up in a week in an online magazine that uses Baileys, but until then, I’ll see if I can dig up something else. If I remember correctly, the Bailey’s website has a few dessert recipes, too, though I haven’t tried any of them.
WendyP – I wish I could say but this was my very first time making them and the very first recipe I stumbled across, so I don’t feel I’m any kind of expert. That said, if the recipe works, don’t fix it. Except that overnight soaking – I bet you can get away with skipping that.
Jessie – Ok! Er, just read the comments, too. It looks like there’s a bit of good advice in here.
Tanna – I’d like to try them with grapefruit, too. Also, I wanted to try lime peels with white chocolate but everyone was horrified at the idea. It could work, right?
Ulterior – Welcome. I should have directed you here sooner.
Jenifer – Fudge? Fudge? Please share!
Helen – Thank you.
Jelena – Oy. I feel bad. The truth is (I’ve mentioned in the comments, but that barely helps) this was my very first time making them and the very first recipe I grabbed. While I liked the results, it’s far from well-tested. Did yours overcook at all? Mine did, but I attempted to trim those parts.
Julie – Thank you.
Neil – Do it! That would be so cool. As I’ve said above, next time I’d boil it three times in plain water. Otherwise, I loved the way they turned out.
Jan – Not yet, but I’ll keep my eye out.
Deb,
It is indeed to start a fresh batch of cold water each time. The previous water if full of the particles you are wanting to get rid of. Takes too much time? Have another pot going at close to the same time– you can still use the same pot, but you will be expediting the process.
beautiful photos, very clear.
I made it today again, it worked out much better. I think they just dried out a bit. They’re so yummy which is why they don’t last for very long :)
Could you recommend a way to wrap these so I could ship them to my dad? I have never shipped home made candies especially ones with chocolate makes me nervous. The trip would be 2 days via Priority mail. Thanks for any suggestions you have!
I LOVE this recipe!
I made these over the weekend and — YUM! I was impatient, though, and put milk in my chocolate to smooth it as it was melting, so there’s no crunch in my chocolate, unfortunately. But still, I’m loving this recipe. Thank you!!!
One piece of advice I could use, though: How did you dip the peels? One by one? All at once and then pour them out onto parchment? I did three oranges’ worth, and doing them one by one was making me batty, so I tried a lot of different methods — none of which were satisfying. What did you do?
I dip the peel individually. Yes, it’s a little tedious. But the entire rest of the recipe doesn’t make much fussy work, so to me it’s worth the time to individually dip.
mmm – they look SO good
I have some oranges I bought before the CA citrus freeze
I may have to do them justice with this recipe
@ jess patiserie is patience! the only way is one by one…
the pictures are realy nice! But for the sirup I would use the juce of the orange instat of wather and a pinch of salt (remember that is as litle as you can pick up with ONLY 2 fingers, what I mean is: be caerfull that’s a point were you easyly can over do it) and at the very end a dash of contreau to protect it from the kids arround x-mas some kardamom and cinemon is a must or cook 2 or 3 slices of fresh ginger with it (likely you want to cover these with choc too)
Oh, goodness! I love the suggestion to store these in my belly. That’s where everything good ends up.
I’ll be giving these a try this holiday season for sure! Thank you for such a wonderful recipe!
Hey great recipe. I don’t think I have ever seen that one done online before.
How in the world are we ever going to stop eating during this holiday season?
Yummie yummie in our tummie, this afternoon that is!
We make this treat at Christmas time every year. We just dip one end of the orange sticks in the chocolate, however. Yummy.
Just found this recipe, and had a thought…could you use the (unburnt) simple syrup after the simmer to flavor coffee or tea or… Or would it taste burnt? Anyway this sounds delicious and I will make them for my kids later tonight.
Yes, you can definitely use the simple syrup afterwards for all sorts of things. I like it as the sweetener for sparkling lemonade for double citrus and extra depth of flavor.
Appealing way to use the whole fruit.
Thanks for sharing such an interesting recipe. I thought the photo work was great!
What a wonderful idea, u made it look so simple and the photos look great.
X M
If you’re going to give these as gifts or if these are for anyone but yourself, you’ll probably want to make sure the chocolate is tempered. Otherwise the chocolate will look dull and off-colored. If it’s not for anyone else, I suggest cut out the tempering. Just get ’em done and eat ’em! This is my favorite candy.
Thank you so much for this recipe- I have loved these since I was little and never realized they were so straight forward to make!
It looks and sounds like a delicious treat for the holidays…ought to add this to the holiday cookie list.
I plan on making these– my question is: Do you think that the recipe would work well with Splenda? The sugar is to sweeten, not to actually candy the peels, right?
Hi Lori — The orange peels are actually candied! So, I doubt that splenda would work. That said, I’m not practiced at all in cooking with it, so perhaps someone will chime in with a solution.
I made these today, have not dipped them yet. My orange peel slices seem a touch tender and am hoping they won’t break up or fall apart. I’m not sure if I cooked them too long or what. I have them drying now and they are quite sticky. Do they normally seem sticky until they are very very dry? I too am wondering how to dip them.
I do the candying and the chocolate dipping on two separate days. Day one: candy the peels, sprinkle them with a touch of granulated sugar, and let them sit on drying racks over a sheet pan overnight. Day two: temper chocolate and dip the cooled, quite dried, and now more sturdy candied peels.
Um, I thought eating peels was bad for you or something.
Nope. Not bad at all. People have been eating citrus peel in marmalade for years.
Peels so far as I know are not bad for you. Sometimes my husband will eat a whole orange, peel and all! By the way, I made these orangettes last night and melted the chocolate and finished them this morning and they are outrageously good!!! I just put the pieces in the hot melted chocolate and used a fork to sort of push the chocolate over the pieces and then lifted them out and dried them on parchment paper. They hardened and are delicious.
I just wanted to say first off that I LOVE this site! I can’t believe I have never read a food blog before? Yes, I maybe “have” been living under a rock….maybe.
Deb, you are awesome, and I love your style of writing! You make me smile, it’s a pleasure visiting this site. My husband last night wondered where I had disappeared to…”Honey, come checkout this awesome website! She’s hilarious!” He already said that I have to make the Brownie Cheesecake for my brother’s birthday next year…..we have our own chocoholics in our family.
I didn’t know where to post this, but since this is the “Candy Girl” entry, I guess here is fine. I had come across this recipe over a year ago from a friend in North Carolina. The only name we have for this is “Crack” or “Crack Candy”. It’s seriously addicting. There is not a 2 week period that goes by when I don’t have to make this for my husband’s co-workers…..guess all those burly, landscaper men love “Crack”. LOL!
Anyway, here goes, once you make it, you MAY just have to pour dish soap on it to stop eating it….something about the combination of sweet and salty….yum.
Crack, or Crack Candy, or Evil Recipe Incarnate
Evil recipe incarnate
*4 oz saltine crackers (that’s one skid, as DH would say)
*1 cup butter
*1 cup dark brown sugar
*2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
*3/4 cup pecans (I prefer walnuts…)
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-Line cookie sheet with saltine crackers in single layer.
-In a saucepan, combine sugar and butter. Bring to a rolling boil for 3 minutes.
-Immediately pour over saltines and spread to cover crackers completely.
-Bake at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over the top. Let sit for 5 minutes. Spread melted chocolate to cover and sprinkle nuts of your choice on top.
-Cool completely and break into pieces.
*****NOTES*****
I use one of my oldest 10X15 non-stick cookie sheets for this. If you use one of those jelly role pans 1) they are too big and 2) this stuff STICKS and you will never get it off of the pan. I have heard rumors that lining with foil helps, but I never have had a problem using my old beat up pan. It is not officially known as the “Crack Pan” and not used for anything else.
I have heard tell of people using Club Crackers in stead of saltines. I have not tried it yet for fear of messing with perfection, but I hear that they are more buttery than saltines, therefore make a better candy. We’ll see……
I guess you could vary what kind of chocolate you would like to use….also what kind of nuts. I have also seen people sprinkle crushed candy canes on top (blech! Peppermint + Toffee Like Flavors = Me No Likey) or toffee bits…..
Your freezer is your friend! I freeze this so I can break it up and have my “sample/control/test” piece faster. OR, if you are in the frozen tundra of the north like me, then just set it outside to cool faster. :-D
I really REALLY hope some of you guys try this. It’s amazingly simple and soooo good.
Great recipe, makes the house smell fantastic ! I used the leftover syrup to sweeten mulled wine. Mixed with the spices it gives a really nice citrus taste to the wine.
Thanks
Jamie, Alsace, France.
Deb — I’m actually making these right now! I took your advice and boiled the peels three times instead of just two, and I really do think it made a difference (I’m one of those people who eats the rind plain, so I tasted the boiled ones). The bitterness is completely gone after the third boiling. =) Can’t wait to taste the final product!
wat a delicious food i wish i could have it now….thanx for sharing it
jasmine
tech-chek.blogspot.com
That’s a very cool dessert idea, and very simple and easy to make.
http://www.webyaa.com/category/food
Great photographs, too!
Thanks to your advice Deb- I tried making the candy two ways- one batch with Splenda and low carb chocolate and one with sugar and regular dark chocolate, following the directions exactly the same.
Since the Splenda peels didn’t candy, I’m storing them in the refrigerator. But, the taste is remarkably similar, which makes me happy. I probably wouldn’t give the sugar free version as a gift unless I knew the person was dieting, but for myself, it’s a delicious treat that I can indulge in guilt-free!
Thanks for the recipe. Note: do not give up after tasting the oranges after boiling or even the sugar bath. I thought at that point they didn’t taste very good but after the chocolate these are really yummy. They taste very similar to those orange chocolate balls that you can buy and are supposed to break and then eat.
I make these every year at Christmas and they are a HUGE hit. I do scrape the pith off the orange once the quarters are peeled and then I blanch mine 3 times, each time starting with fresh cold water and bringing up to a boil, draining and repeating. As for the simple syrup, I never bring that to a boil, only a simmer (you wont burn them and you’ll always have yummy left over orange flavored simple syrup left over). The peels cook for 45 minutes in the simmering syrup – DO NOT STIR! ONLY SWISH THE PAN SLIGHTLY IF YOU NEED TO MOVE ANY OF THEM AROUND – and then I let them drain on a wire rack slightly before rolling in sugar. I dip mine one at a time, leaving about 1/4 of the sugared orange peel showing. I think it looks pretty, gives the recipient an idea of what they’re eating and also, they are much easier to dip that way.
Love the site!!
You all are easily impressed. Let me impress you more… If you julienne the orange peel (cut into extremely tiny strips) and only boil the simple syrup until it’s clear and add the orange peels you can make a marmalade. Just don’t cook the peels so long in the syrup. Candied orange peels are very common in the industry and tweaking the recipe makes such a quick fruit spread that it’s a fallback for many pastry chefs.Also, the peels are very pretty when rolled in large crystal sugar after draining, saves time and makes a beautiful dessert garnish.
Very interesting recipe. Like the whole idea
Just to add that I may try this with white choclate as well
I have just found you using Stumble. The recipe for the orange skins in chocolate looks devine. I am definitely going to try that one. I am adding your site to my favourites so I can visit again.
Found the recipe while reading your grapefruit post… and a tiny sidenote to add.
I make something similar to these, and if you make a double batch of the simple syrup and pull the strip at the same time, you have left an amazingly fragrent orange syrup that can almost completly substitute for triple sec. Very yummy drizzled over ice cream or poured into black tea as a sweetener.
Do citrus rinds freeze well? Could I save up my rinds from my oranges and then have a candy making party? It would make me feel frugal (something I rarely feel!).
I just finished makeing a batch of these orange rinds. They are GREAT. The simple syrup was great in my Ice Tea afterwards what a bonus.
Hazel
This looks tasty and relatively easy.
Love your site…just “stumbled” into and I’m glad I did. I think I might be getting married soon (call it a hunch) and I have a feeling I’ll be coming back here repeatedly.
Best,
LK
Wow the pics of the oranges are amazing! I love chocolate and oranges. I am going to double the recipe and make the syrup to drizzle over ice cream and pound cake!
wow these look soo good, i love chocolate and orange together, mmm
Wow! These are so good! I have been searching for this recipe since our trip to Turkey last summer where I found some of these at a candy kiosk. I almost cried when the bus driver said we could not go back that way so I could load up again! I made them yesterday and you have totally made my week! Thank you thank you thank you! Penny Raynor
there’s thirty minutes left on the timer and im REALLY tempted to peek in the pan. i keep hearing sizzling sounds and im scared they’re burned. but if its still bubbling, that means there’s still syrup in there!
the pictures are AMAZING, btw
Hi Emily — If you hear sizzling, you should definitely check! They can burn, especially because all of our stoves have their own temperatures/levels they call “low.” Good luck.
It looks very simple and easy to make. Thank you for sharing.
wow. never seens anything like that before. I have seen pretty much everything exle in chocolate except peels. Nice. Thanks
I made these for Valentine’s Day this year. Instead of doing strips, though, I cut the peels into little, bite-size hearts. And I topped each one with a heart-shaped sprinkle from Barbie’s cooking line. They turned out not only delicious (many never made it to my Valentines … ) but adorable!
What a great idea!
Wow, have to admit. I will never make these. Way too much work, but I can live vicariously through your beautiful photos.
this is really wonderful! I ran into a citrus street vendor the other day and bought about 15 oranges. A great way to use the skins. i’m so excited to try this.
I made the orangettes for Eid-el-Adha (the Muslim festival commemorating the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca and Abraham’s submission to God) which is not standard Eid food in any way (think roast lamb, lamb stew, couscous, honey-filled sweets, baklava etc). But they were a hit with the whole family!
I made one batch with red chilli added to the chocolate, which gave a tingling warm feeling after the sweetness and bitterness of the dark choc and orange. I also kept the orange-flavoured simple syrup and use it in various vinaigrettes (especially with endives).
And I kept the pith on! (I did make twice the amount of syrup though and they simmered for almost 2 hours because I was busy doing something else! I used orange juice instead of water as suggested by sts 23). I now am a proud owner of a candy thermometer. I will try to temper the chocolate the next time I make these.
Thank you so much!!
Deb, thanks for publishing this!! I have been looking for an orange peel coated in chocolate *everywhere* since the first time I tried them many years ago – and I haven’t been able to find one. So now I can make them at home!! Wonderful, thank you!!!
A texture exploration! I boiled my peels 3x for this recipe, and they turned into irresistible orange jellies. Can’t wait to share these with my new roommate; maybe they’ll get me out of doing the dishes …
these are my favorite candies ever! I’m so glad to know how to make them now. Thanks! :)
I made these today, using tangelos…what a beautiful item! Tomorrow I am dipping them in dark chocolate. I hope to get some of them bagged and packaged for Valentine’s Day gifts, but I can’t promise that ‘s really going to happen. lol
Great how-to. If I may suggest omitting one step. I’ve tried it both ways and I say skip the boil and rinse steps. It basically robs the orange of its fragrance and essential oils. It’s like making chicken stock and throwing out the first round of liquid; you’re left with water. One other idea; add Grand Marnier to the liquid, save the syrup for a myriad of uses, from flavoring teas to salad dressings to stir fry vegetables to icings.
Try putting some Raz el Hanout in the chocolate!
Unless you are using coating chocolate, the chocolate MUST be tempered. If it is not, the chocolate will have a shorter shelf life, be grainy and crumbly, have fat bloom (light brown or gray streaks), and cause large feet to form under the dipped orange peels since untempered chocolate takes longer to set. Probably the easiest way for beginners to temper the chocolate is using the direct method. When you buy chocolate, it is already tempered, so all you have to do is melt it without letting it go above its maximum working temperature. For most dark chocolate, the temperature that should not be exceeded is 90 degrees F. For milk, 88F and for White, 86F. Just heat the chocolate in short intervals in the microwave, stirring and checking the temperature after each time. If you go over the max. temperature, just add small pieces of the original solid tempered chocolate until it drops back down to the max. temperature.
These can also be rolled in plain granulated sugar, you don’t have to use large crystal sugar as that is harder to find and more expensive
These look so cute and yummy, but I absolutely hate bitter. Are these?
If you do not like bitter foods, you will probably not want to eat orange peels, even if candied.
Wow, I can’t believe how much I’d like to try these.
Thanks for the unique idea. It’s now on my list. (bucket list? ;-)
Wow that is a delicious one. Although the process is a long one. But i am sure the taste is worth all the pains.
I just made these and I wish the orange peels were a little firmer. Would that simply require a) thicker skinned oranges and/or b) letting them dry longer before enrobing in the chocolate? By the way, stellar recipe! Thanks for a great blog on food. I’m trying the graham cracker recipe next…
You’d want to dry them longer before enrobing them.
Excellent, are we talking hours or days?
At least overnight. I have had good results candying the peels one evening and then dipping them in tempered chocolate the next evening.
Hi there. I was interested to try this recipe as it includes corn syrup.
I have never understood the boiling part. They say it’s supposed to leech out the bitterness but I think that’s an old wive’s tale passed on by copy and paste.
When I candy my orange slices, I never blanch the peel and I find they taste better.
I definitely leave the pith on and I temper my chocolate.
An alternative method you may like to try is drying the orange slices in the oven and dipping them (without candying) – another taste sensation :)
Oh my. I just finished scrubbing the chocolate off my hands from making these amazing orangettes. Although I truly find peace with my hands buried deep in bowls of melted chocolate, I wasn’t sure if that was the best method to use. In the end, my chocolate covered orange peals looked a little more…. rustic than I had hoped. The ones you have posted here (as always) look absolutely beautiful and smooth. May I ask how you did that? Mine were just too soft to get a smooth coat, and I toyed with the idea of redipping with once completely cooled. But when the clock struck ten-fifteen and I could feel the once melted chocolate solidifying under my finger nails, I knew it was time to clean up. Any suggestions for future dipping?
Grace: Definitely not just an old wives tale, as I tasted the peels at each step. The bitterness of the piths was indeed reduced. However, so was some of the orangey-ness from the zest. I also noticed that it is the piths that absorb the sugar, so I wouldn’t recommend removing them to remove the bitterness. The idea is to get the bitterness out and replace it with sugar.
I ended up using a mashup of this recipe and the one from the Joy of Cooking, which recommends (1) starting with cold, fresh water for each simmer and bringing it up to the simmer slowly; (2) doing so 3-5 times; and (3) an overnight salt-water bath followed by a 20 minute soak in fresh water for softer peels and fewer simmerings. I combined these methods, doing an overnight soak plus two simmerings. Joy of Cooking also recommends a slightly stronger syrup, but only recommends simmering in it for 20 minutes. I haven’t done the chocolate dipping yet, but they’re delicious as is. Thanks Deb! As always, your instructions were clear and your commentary gave me a good sense of how to tweak the recipe to my own taste.
These were good! And simple, though more time-consuming than I’d realized when I started. I’ll probably make them again. Thanks for sharing. Any more candy recipes for this Christmas?
Absolutely delicious! The family has nearly devoured them all, in a matter of only a day. A perfect Christmas recipe, particularly for gifting to friends.
I tried blanching the peels three times and I think came out much better for it.
Wonderful recipe! I know just the person that will love it! I was wondering though, would this work for other types of citrus peels?? Maybe I will experiment!!
Hi Deb, upon a recent visit to one of those “quaint” candy shoppes, we found honey-soaked orange slices dipped in chocolate. How do you think this recipe might compare?
These looks amazing…I know I will try them for the Holidays!
I absolutely loved these. I thought they looked interesting, but was unsure of how it would taste, but they turned out to be AMAZING! thanks so much for the recipe:)
Oh my gravy, these are so good. They taste better the next day (if there are any left… and I live by myself. haha)
I love adapting your recipes and making them my own (yours are the best though!). :) I have a huge orange tree outside so I decided to put them to use. My orange peels were very small so I gathered them into clusters with dried cranberries and dipped them in milk chocolate. Next time I will use buy some thick skinned oranges like you did.
Hey Deb,
I tried these for pre christmas celebrations and they were fantastic! I will definitely keep them in my christmas sweets collection!
Thanks for the great recipes, you are my go to baking site!
Using homegrown navel oranges I blanched twice and they are a tad bitter. Next time I will blanch 3x to be sure to get the bitterness out. But they are definitely edible and I will be forced to eat the entire batch before trying again tomorrow. Such a shame…not!
I was SO excited to find this recipe here. Candied orange peel are my absolute favorite candy. I’ve been wanting to try to make them myself and Christmas time is the perfect excuse (somehow I’m going to part with some of them as gifts in a chocolate box).
My grocery store had 8lbs of navel oranges for $3.49….so I’m planning on making 3 batches. I blanched the peels 3x’s. I used 1 1/2 cups each of water and sugar for the simple syrup to make sure it wouldn’t evaporate during the hour. I loosely covered with a lid. 10oz. of chocolate was plenty for the 4 oranges. Thanks for an awesome recipe!!!
Hi :)
I absolutely adore your website, though this is my first time commenting. For my holiday gift boxes, I made your peanut butter buckeyes, the orangettes and the truffles you posted a while ago. They were all a resounding success and were met with recipe requests. I just wanted to make a suggestion for these, I tried a small portion with some of the water substituted with lemon juice. The mixture bubbled more and the peels don’t dry as quickly, or a throughly, but they ended up very soft and less sweet once inside the chocolate. So it works out well, though a little differently.
Hi! I tried to make these (I used a very similar recipe) but the orange peels remained quite sticky and chewy. Did you get the same?
I recently started following your blog and I am greatly enjoying it so far!
These were delicious but I had one problem with them. Are you supposed to let them dry overnight? Because the drying process took several hours and I ended up putting them in the oven at a low temp. to speed up the process.
I was just wondering what your experience was with drying them.
Thanks so much!
Just made these and they are absolutely delicious! I let the peels dry overnight (mostly because I got lazy) which worked very well. I also blanched the peels 3 times instead of 2 (I set up 3 pots of boiling water so I didn’t need to wait for fresh water to boil each time). I also made lime peels coated in white chocolate – absolutely amazing! The only thing I did differently with the limes was after the last (third) blanching I cooled the peels and removed as much of the pith as possible with a paring knife as limes are much more bitter than the oranges. Next time I’m going to try lemon peels in both the white and the dark chocolates (separately). Great recipe, thanks!
Hey there,
So i made these last night and i blanched them twice, and candied them in simple syrup equal parts sugar to water (I did 2 cups of each) in a large pot, covered, for an hour. I let them dry overnight and when I went to dip them in chocolate the next day they were super mushy and hard to handle. Any idea why this would have happened?
I want to try them again, but I am wondering what I did wrong?
Lindsey
Hello! last night we tried out this recipe: it’s perfect! Thank you!
I linked it to my blog
http://smallappletree.blogspot.com/2011/05/orangettes.html
Thank you so much for posting this recipe! I’ve now made these twice; both batches vanished VERY quickly, and friends are asking when I’m making more. So delicious!
A few notes from my trials:
* Unless you have huge oranges, a 12-oz bag of chocolate chips is more than enough for four. The remainder was nicely orange-infused after all the dipping, so I used it to make luscious chocolate curls.
* I needed to dry my peels at least 8 hours before starting with the chocolate, and found their handling consistency much better at over 12 hours. (Right after all the boiling and simmering, they were like limp noodles!)
* I found it least tedious to dump a bunch of peels into the melted chocolate at once, then fork them out individually, skim off the extra chocolate, and lay them gently onto a flat surface to harden.
Again, many thanks for sharing the recipe and photos!
Hi Deb. You might have already answered this, but I was wondering if you could tell me what kind of oranges you used to make these? I just got a bag of valencia oranges from my co-op and I was wondering if they might work in this recipe?
Ministilskin — I think I used navel oranges but you can use any type. If you can find organic, all the better because they should not be sprayed with wax. If not, scrub them lightly in warm water before using them. I am sure the valencia will be delicious, but if the skins are thinner, you might find that they are done sooner.
Does the orange peel have to be fresh? Or can I use previously frozen peel?
I haven’t tried to make these with frozen peels, so I cannot say for sure if it would work.
Um, so nobody else’s peels were mushy? This recipe seemed so simple, how could I mess this up? The thing I love about chocolate covered orange peel is that chewy consistency of the orange peel. Mine are positively soft and mushy. I added a little water (maybe 3 TBS in total) when I noticed the liquid level getting desperately low, was that the problem? Someone pleeeeaaase tell me how to fix this, and no one tell anyone I messed up such a simple recipe!
So…I tried my hand at making candied orange and lemon peels and they turned out too tough. What am I doing wrong? Did I not cook them long enough? *sad face*
I can’t wait to try this recipe out!
As a fellow New Yorker, I’d love any tips you might have for storing chocolate in tiny, steam-heated apartments…the fridge is probably too cold and moist, but it might as well be summertime with the temperature in my building!
Celia — Ha! Learned the hard way that there’s a steam pipe running behind my kitchen cabinet. Could there possibly be a worse location for it? Anyway, keep chocolate as far from the heat sources as possible. I keep mine in a side drawer in the living room, which is odd, but better than the mess of expensive heartbreaking I had to throw away that time.
I followed the recipe verbatim and my peels also turned out “mushy.” When you bite into the candy, the orange peels are extremely soft and moist. I was hoping for something with more of a snap!
Would freezing the orange peels before submerging in chocolate work?
Any suggestions?
Absolutely amazing! I will make again and again and again!!!
Well, I should have watched mine a little more closely over the hour, as I ended up with the equivalent of candied orange marbles… and a pan filled with the hardest caramel I’ve ever seen. Oops! I am definitely trying again today, and will just do a much, much lower heat for the simmer, and see what happens!
Hi Deb,
As always, your recipe worked perfectly — these orangettes were just lovely. Your lime/white chocolate idea sounds killer too. Thank you so much! /R
I plan on trying these. My mom used to make candied orange peels for us kids but she would make chocolate covered ones for dad. This was almost 50 years ago. I was thinking it would be hard to find the recipe. It is my dad’s 74th birthday today and mom passed away 3 years ago. I thought this might be a nice thing to try and make him for his birthday. Thanks.
I made these for christmas gifts this past year and they were AMAZING-ly fantastic! everyone loved them, and i had a difficult time not hoarding them all to my self!
SO DOING THIS I think I will try to make rings out of them though?
This is my all-time favorite candy, and living in Florida it gets so hot that many candy stores won’t carry these. So I made these, and made them, and made them, well, you get it. I love this recipe! The thicker the rind on the oranges the better. My ‘tweaks’ are to blanche three times ALWAYS, and rinse in cold water in between blanches. I also use ONLY the orange juice and sugar for candying the peels as it intensifies the orange flavor (never water). Dry them before dipping! I put them on a rack to ‘air’ dry for awhile before storing. I tried to candy grapefruit rinds and threw them away. Not successful for me. I love your site, and am dying to make the Crispy Potato Roast, it looks like heaven. Thanks so much!
i’ve always loved these, but have never thought about making them myself. i guess i should try!
I wanted to let you t I do. I use a potatoe peeler for the skins. You don’t go deep, of course, and there is no bitterness at all.
Any sugestions on how to detect and remove any dyes on the orange skin? I have been reading that some oranges are dyed with Citrus Red to look more orange, on the understanding that no one uses the skin and no harmful levels reach the flesh inside. But I haven’t been able to find out what’s good for washing it off.
Hot water’s good for taking off the waxes they use to seal the skin, at the least.
Maybe organic oranges are the way to go.
Hi Alice — You can give it a scrub with a vegetable brush. Or, as you said, you can definitely seek out organic or unmeddled with oranges. For a treat like this, where you’re indeed eating the whole orange, I think it’s a worthwhile place to invest in the quality of what you’re using.
I am not one to use sugar syrup in tea or anything so I did an experiment with my leftover syrup after the candying process. I boiled it as you do for making caramel then when it became golden I added butter and cream (1 stick butter, 1/2 cup cream) and the result is decent. Not stellar, but a way to use up all the syrup in a new way. I added some vanilla and orange emulsion to it and now I have enough caramel sauce to put in a jar and give as a gift in addition to the orangettes.
Made these today- delicious!
Triple blanched, cold water rinse each time. New water with each blanching. I did some semisweet and some milk chocolate (didn’t have dark on hand and the weather was less than stellar) and I have to say I prefer the milk. My husband is a very happy man tonight. Thanks!
Sounds like this is going to be my new favorite recipe. OMG burnt candied walnuts while drooling over this recipe
I remembered these (shop bought) from my childhood and made them as a christmas gift for my father. They were such a great hit I posted the recipe on my blog! (I found your recipe on “Whisks and Whimsy”and just stuck to the instructions. Mine look a little more ‘rustic’ than yours, but they tasted wonderfully).
If you put some salt in the blanching water first of all, this should remove any bitterness from the pith.
Do you think this would work with whole kumquats? I have a small tree of them that I need to use up.
Brittany — I might look for a recipe specifically intended for kumquats; I know there are a lot if you Google around.
This recipe is excellent! So yummy! Made it for gift for friends they loved it! What is fantastic is with the sugar liquid and oranges that is left over from the recipe I used it to make a wonderful marmalade! Sliced oranges in a boiled it for an extra 45 min more or less and next morning Great jam for our toasted baguettes! Enjoyed by all!
I just wanted to thank you for this recipe…I’ve made these for the past few years, and everybody is wild about them. I made about 200 of these last night! I do grind pink coarse salt over them after dipping, and I think that really puts these over the top. Making orangettes for the holidays is one of my favorite things :)
I was just gifted with your wonderful cookbook, and I’m certain I’ll be discovering even more of my favorite things!
Thank you so much! I have loved Purdy’s Candies Orange Chocolates for years and you could only get them at Christmas and I am no where near a major city anymore so I haven’t had them in forever! I can’t wait to try making these! I am wondering… would mandarin oranges work for this too? I have tonnes of them left from Christmas!
Thank you so much! Not judtjust ffor the recipe, but for the pictues and step by step instructions. Every year in December I spend $20 a lb for these. They are my #1 favorite candy. I can only get them in December, because I live in Arizona. BUT NO MORE! Thanks to you, as long as oranges are available, I can have them. My apologies to my former supplier, but I’ll be keeping my money and making these myself from now on.
Mmm. Finding this post today turned me from a (most grateful) lurker to a commenter! I have made candied peel (orange and grapefruit) for a cake I love. But while I enjoy the candied peel by itself, there’s usually so much extra that we — gasp! — get tired of eating it. I’ve seen orangettes in candy shops, but never thought to make them myself. Brilliant!
The lovely cake, BTW, is the Porter Cake by Rachel Allen on Epicurious. Apparently traditionally for St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s terrific too as a fruitcake alternative at Christmas! My candied peel technique is one of the many on the Epi site — though I haven’t tried it myself, there are even ones for clementines and tangerines.
I made these with clementines, which I think it made it easier. Required no cutting of the pith.
Abbie — Great idea! We certainly have enough of those peels around right now.
My clementine peels are too sticky. How do I dry them so I can dip them in the chocolate and what have I done wrong? Marlyn
They’re going to remain sticky, but less so if you let them fully cool on a rack. It shouldn’t prevent chocolate from sticking.
Hi, I just made these and I think they are going to be delicious. (Like someone else I thought they’d be fab with a pinch of cayenne pepper next time, and maybe a wee pinch of cinnamon too.) But…I had a hard time figuring out how to dip them cleanly and efficiently; I found myself standing over the chocolate bowl waiting for the peels to drip, and some of them are a bit gloppy. Plus they don’t look quite as smooth and uniform as I’d hoped. Any tips? (I saw someone else asked this but I didn’t see an answer — did I miss it?)
Thanks!
Elise — I think (er, sterilized!) tweezers with a thin end would work well. There are also all sorts of chocolate-dipping tools and forks you can get from cooking stores, but I prefer to use things I already have around whenever I can.
Thank you — tweezers are what I was dreaming of, why didn’t I just use them?! Next time. And speaking of next time: so I haven’t even served my orangettes yet, that’s tonight, but I’ve been nibbling on the — ahem — leftovers, and I had an idea. What if one were to make a batch of these and chop each one into a few nuggety pieces and then use them in cookies instead of chocolate chips…?
What kind of oranges are best for candied orange rinds. Thank you
Lisa — You can use any kind.
These tasted fabulous. But I could not get them to look pretty. The chocolate kinda seized when I put the peels in. Any suggestions on how to put them in the chocolate? Did you let them dry up after they are put in the simple syrup. It’s been a few hours and they are still damp.
Deb, I love this recipe sooo much! I have made it countless times and made some fun additions (e.g., cayenne pepper to give it a little kick). Well, I’m doing it again, but this time, I need to ship the orangettes next day delivery to another part of the US.
Do you have any recommendations on how I can store them without them melting?
Shannon — If you temper the chocolate, it shouldn’t remelt or stay sticky. I have also read about people adding paraffin wax to the chocolate coating on buckeyes, but I haven’t tried it. (Doesn’t sound appetizing, although we probably wouldn’t notice it.)
Made these two days ago and they came out wonderfully. After a bit of trial and error, I found chopsticks to be the perfect dipping device!
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I tried making Orangettes and even though they tasted good in the end my segements turned out very gooey when I candied them in simple syrup, I have no idea why though?
Vaishali — Did they perhaps just not drain enough, or dry out enough after they drained?
WOW, this easy!!! Why have i not thought about it!! Thanks for the recipe. Very creative. I recently did something half way with lemon rinds – bitter lemon candies but never thought of dipping in chocolate!!
Hi – this recipe looks amazing! Question for you: after I’ve candied the oranges peels in the simple syrup, I’d like to use them to coat the bottom of a springform pan for a cake and then pour the cake batter over top. Will the oranges burn if I bake them or do you think they’ll be alright?
It’s very hard to say whether they’ll stay there or float into the cake.
Its Feb 2018. I was looking for a recipe for Sleeping Beauty pancakes. Found one on the Orangette blog, which included a link to the recipe for orangettes (2006). Guess who created that recipe! What a delight to see your brand at the top of the page. And, it was really funny. Thank you for always being here.
Bless your heart. My partner loves these, and they are so hard to find. We’re doing charity giving this year (Nicholas Kristof yesterday NYT op ed piece motivated us) but now I know I can also make her something she’ll be thrilled by.
Some desserts–I’m thinking ricotta torte–call for chopped candied fruit stirred into the filling. These (minus the chocolate) are great for that, and I guess with the chocolate too though I haven’t tried. And they keep for a remarkably long time.
I’d actually never thought about that — it would be nice to candy your own fruit vs. buying them, probably riddled with preservatives.