Orange Peel in Syrup – why waste the peel?

I was making a cake last week that required candied orange peel but instead I used zest since I had no peel. It got me thinking about all the oranges we eat and all that lovely peel that gets thrown away. I don’t have this problem with lemons as we use so much lemon zest in our cooking that I more likely to have lots of naked lemons in the fridge. So I decided that  oranges would be my fruit of the week and pre peel them, turning the peel into these lovely syrupy bits of rind. The advantage of that was I  had ready peeled oranges to eat at work, the downside was, like all food with me if it’s in front of me it gets eaten so I consumed them over 2 days instead of the whole week :o)

Alternately, so you don’t get an orange overload in one day, each orange you eat you could pop the peel into the freezer and when you have enough defrost them and make the syrup. I have already made the most amazing chocolate orange scones with the syrupy peel and plan to make an ice cream at some point. You can also put a few spoons full into a chocolate cake or my brownies here. Or simply spoon over yoghurt or ice cream or jazz up your cereal with some.

Ingredients

• Peel from 5 Oranges
• 1 cup sugar
• 1.5 cups water

Method

1. Quarter oranges and remove peel, removing any excess pith. Slice orange peel into strips
2. Place peel strips into a pan of water and boil for 3 minutes to remove some bitterness. Other recipes suggest repeating this 3 times but didn’t and find the rind tastes great.
3. Drain the boiled water and add the cup of sugar and cup and half of water to the rind and place over a low heat until sugar has dissolved.
4. Turn heat up and gently boil until the water reduces by half and has become syrupy.
5. Pour into sterilised jars and place lid on while hot.