I kind of… cheated when I made that poppyseed angel food cake the other day. The recipe called for a topping of grapefruit curd and an optional garnish of candied grapefruit peel, of which I did neither. And then when I saw Jessica’s Instagram post the next day, I felt like it was a sign that I shouldn’t have cut the experimentation short. The grapefruit was staring at me from the kitchen counter and I said “tomorrow grapefruit, tomorrow.”.
I got home from yoga, caught up with my roommate, and ate a quick dinner. And then around 8 PM I started gutting and slicing grapefruit. Let me tell ya, 8 PM is not the time to start anything that slightly resembles candy, because something slightly resembling candy is not a quick feat.
The peels required lots of boiling to get rid of the bitterness. You boiled them for 5 minutes, dumped, and repeated that step twice. I tried to speed things up by having two pots of boiling water going simultaneously and transferring when ready. And then you put the peels (I used the peel of one large pink grapefruit) in a melted mixture of 2-1/4 cups sugar and 1-1/2 cups water, simmering for an hour. I also dropped a few drops of red food coloring into the mix because I wanted my peels to remain pink. You set each piece in a bed of sugar until it is coated and then set on a wire rack to dry out for a day.
I haven’t tried the peels yet because they’re still drying, but I’ve certainly tasted the goo the peels left behind and I am sooo excited to bring a few of these to work with me tomorrow!
Thanks Jessica for the motivation!!
Those look so good, I’m going to need to make these sometime soon!
Look for super fine sugar for the outside or sour sugar.
How pretty are those?? I feel like they would be lovely on the end of a fruity cocktail!
You’re so right! Looks like I’ll be experimenting with cocktails this weekend!