It's All About the Food

Time to make the fruitcake!

It's not Thanksgiving yet, but Halloween is long past and it's more than time for baking fruitcake. (I'm also half way done my holiday shopping, but no, I don't want to see any Christmas displays in the stores yet.)

The critical ingredient for fruitcake success or failure is candied citrus peel, what the British and Irish call mixed peel. This replaces the revolting mixed peel from the super market (which you can't buy now, anyhow). Real mixed peel is hard to find in America, but the good news is that home-made candied peel is easy, if time-consuming.

I don't have a set recipe yet, but the basic procedure is as follows:

Throughout the year, save and freeze intact lemon, orange, grapefruit, tangerine and clementine peels. Don't bother saving anything that's been zested.

Membrane can be easily cut away with a small, sharp knife. Cut the peels into quarters; that is, halve each half. Each quarter will have two pointy end. Holding the peel flat on a cutting board, make a quarter-inch cut into each point, keeping the knife blade parallel to the cutting board. Grab the bit of pith just cut away from the peel and pull gently; you may need to work your fingers under the pith and membrane to keep it in one piece. If only part of the membranes comes off, make a similar cut in the other point of the peel and pull off the pith. Most of the pith (the white part) will remain behind, and that's fine; this is only to remove what's left after, say, juicing a lemon.

Keep the peels in a gallon zipper bag with as much air squeezed out as possible. If the peels get freezer burnt, throw them out or compost them. When the bag is full or half full, there is enough peel to candy for yourself and any friends.

In a six-quart pot, boil the peels with enough water to cover them. When the water is boiling nicely, drain the peel. Repeat twice more. This step is supposed to eliminate the bitterness of the pith; I've not confirmed this, but it makes the kitchen smell nice. This step will take about 45 minutes.

The final step is to gently boil the peel in sugar syrup until all the syrup is absorbed. My friend who makes her own peel uses a medium syrup (3:2 ratio of sugar to water, that is 1 1/2 c. sugar to 1 c water) to cover; other recipes have a ratio of weight of the peel to weight of the sugar. Knowing I was running out of sugar, I used most of my remaining sugar, added water to make a medium syrup, boiled, then kept adding peel until it started to poke over the top of the syrup.

Gently boil the peel, stirring occasionally. The syrup should bubble, but not much. The peel requires more and more stirring and attention as the water evaporates and the sugar is absorbed.

In the end, the peel will be very translucent and most (all?) of the sugar will be absorbed. This will take three to four hours.

Allow to cool, dice if desired, and freeze.

Or, you'll be planting tulip bulbs in the garden with your son, leaving your husband to watch the peel, and he'll fall asleep. The peel will scorch and you'll spend the next day fishing peel out of very thick sugar syrup, cutting the blackened bits off, and dicing peel.

You see why I don't have a recipe yet — you have to order those tulip bulbs in May!