Adventures in Candying Citron!

This bumpy little fruit enticed me with its floral, lemony fragrance and unusual appearance. I had to have it, so I brought it home and wondered what to do with it since I had never seen a citron before. 


I decided to make candied citron peels so I found a recipe. With anticipation, I cut the citron open and noticed the thickness of the pith as you can see below. Although the flesh had very little juice, I needed the pith and skin, so I didn't mind.

The first step in making the candied peels is boiling the pieces in water, then pouring off the water, then repeating about 3 or 4 times. The purpose of this is to remove the bitterness from the pith. I thought this was going really well.


At the end of this process, I drained the water. I then added sugared water syrup and turned the heat back up. I simmered the mixture until the peels were nearly transparent and the syrup had been absorbed by the peels.

I then proceeded to make a huge mess as I tried dragging the peels through powdered sugar. I needed to coat the pieces in sugar.  But I managed, and you can see the results below.

The next step was to taste my masterpiece! I blissfully popped a piece in my mouth and noticed that it had a touch of bitterness, but the sugar made the taste tolerable. Maybe I had just eaten a piece that had not been boiled enough.


So I tried another piece and the same thing happened. By the time I tried a third piece, I think my taste buds were getting used to the bitterness and it tasted okay.


So then I tried a piece out on one of my unsuspecting family members. She tried to say nice things, but I could tell that she was tasting the bitterness when her mouth puckered!


I thought maybe they would taste better in the morning. I put them in a zip-lock bag and went to bed. The next morning I was anxious to try them so I hurried to the kitchen. I picked up the bag and noticed that the pieces were "mushy" and limp. I opened the bag and with caution picked out one of the pieces and popped it in my mouth. During the night it had taken on the consistency of a "gummy bear" candy. And the bitter taste was even more pronounced. 


I have no way of explaining my failure in executing this recipe! I threw the rest of my "masterpiece" into the garbage. Maybe you will have better luck with candied citron!


However, while working on the citron, I also candied lemon peels that I had left over. The picture below shows them simmering. This endeavor was much more successful luckily!

As I looked for a candied citron recipe, I discovered that the citron has quite a history. Although not successful with the candying, I am glad I brought the citron home because the fragrance delighted me for several days. And it was a beautiful yellow color.