K J Gracie

I've been feeling christmassy this week (despite promising Matt that Christmas wouldn't start until after Wills birthday!) and can barely contain my seasonal excitement.

So this evening I couldn't help but try out a new christmas recipe that I saw on River Cottage the other week. Pam Corbin has been candy-ing (I think that's a word) orange peel. We have a glut of clementines in our house, so I decided to give it a try. 

Will had to help, by eating loads of clementines. That wasn't really a chore for my little fruit bat, who polished them off and then ate a punnet of grapes. 

Then I cut the peel as thinly as I could, scraped off any excess pith and boiled in water for 30 minutes. Pam says 45 but I'm impatient - it can't make that much difference, can it? To be honest, it was probably more like 20 minutes. Oh well. 

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Then I added lots of sugar. She probably did measure hers, but I wasn't paying attention, so I just poured some in and boiled for another 30 minutes. Now I have to leave it to cool for 24 hours. 

For those who are interested in giving this a go, the next step is to boil again for 30 minutes tomorrow, allow to cool, boil again, etc... for a few days, then boil until you are left with a thick syrup. You then spread them out on a piece of waxed paper to dry for 48 hours. After this you dip them in melted chocolate.

They look fab, are great to snack on, and even better to parcel up as inexpensive hostess gifts for people over the party season.

I'll let you know how we get on.