Homemade Candied Orange Peels and Slices will help you make some amazing base ingredients to flavour your baked goodies.
As Christmas is nearing, you can try these with some oranges and then use them in cakes and cookies to add amazing orange flavour.

Candied orange peels are usually added in Plum cakes, Stollen, Christmas Pudding, Dundee cake and so many other Christmas bakes. You can easily source them from Amazon, but when you make it at home, you get the ultimate satisfaction.

You can use homemade Orange paste to flavour cakes. Usually we use orange juice to make orange cakes, but when you add the paste in the batter, it gives intense flavour. One example is the Eggless Sicilian Orange Cake I have made earlier. The flavour is far more better than just using orange juice.

I also made a detailed video on how to make these candied orange peels and slices. If you love watching videos to learn, check this out.
You can use Candied Orange Slices as a decorative detail to make your cakes show stoppers. You can either use them on top of the cake or use it for an upside orange cake I made earlier. I will add all the links at the bottom of the post. If interested, please take a look at those recipes. They are just amazing.

Candied Orange Peels and Slices – Prepping and Drying
For both peels and slices, they are first boiled in water for ten minutes before boiling in sugar syrup. When making peels, you need to remove the white pith but when making slices, no need to do anything else. Just boil it in sugar syrup after it comes out of the water.
Once you remove the slices and peels are from the syrup, it is very important to air dry them until slightly sticky to touch. If the climate is hot, they take within 12 hours, but if cold or humid, they might take more than 24 hours.




Homemade Candied Orange Peels and Slices – Final sugar coat and drying
Once they are dry, you need to roll them in granulated / caster sugar to coat them evenly. And you need to dry them again for hours until they are not sticky to touch. Air drying is the only way to go when making candied peels or slices.
Store them in airtight box for one week or ten days. Peels have a longer shelf life than the slices.


The remaining orange and the water that we saved from the peels and slices is boiled together and processed to get the paste. Make sure to remove any seeds from the orange so that the paste won’t turn bitter. You can store the paste in fridge for 10 days. Use them in cakes to get the intense orange flavour.

German Stollen Recipe (click on image for recipe)

Eggless Plum Cake (click on image for recipe)

Dundee Cake (Click on image for recipe)

Eggless Orange Cake (Click on image for recipe)

Eggless Sicilian Orange Cake (click on image for recipe)


Homemade Candied Orange Peels and Slices
Ingredients
For The Candied Peels
- 4 no Oranges
- 300 g Sugar
- 600 ml Water
- 100 g Granulated Sugar-1/4-1/2 cup for coating
For The Orange Slices
- 2 no Oranges
Instructions
For The Candied Orange Peels:
- First cut off both the sides of the orange to make it easy to peel.
- Then with a serrated knife carefully cut the skin along the length without cutting the fruit.
- Make 5 cuts for an orange.
- Carefully remove the peel from the fruit. You will end up with 5 segments in each orange. Reserve the oranges for the paste.
- In a pan add water and the peel and let it boil for 10 minutes.
- Now drain water and reserve for paste.
- Remove the peels and allow them to cool down.
- Slice each segment into two for easy handling.
- With a sharp knife, remove the white coloured pith from the peel.
- In a pan add sugar and water and bring it to boil.
- Add the peels and reduce flame to medium low.
- Cover and cook the peels for 30-45 minutes or until the peels look shiny and glossy.
- Remove the peels and place them on a wire rack.
- Allow it to dry for 24 hours.
- Take granulated sugar in a bowl, roll each peel in the sugar so that it coats the peel.
- Dry it again over night to completely dry.
- Store them in air tight box and use as needed.
For The Candied Orange Slices:
- First cut off both the sides of the orange.
- Cut each orange into ¼” thick slices.
- In a pan add water and the slices and let it boil for 10 minutes.
- Now drain water and reserve for paste.
- Remove the slices and allow them to cool down.
- In a pan add sugar and water and bring it to boil.
- Add the slices and reduce flame to medium low.
- Cover and cook the slices for 30-45 minutes or until the slices look shiny and glossy.
- Remove the slices and place them on a wire rack.
- Allow them to dry for 24 hours.
- Take granulated sugar in a bowl, roll each slice in the sugar so that it coats the slice.
- Dry it again over night to completely dry.
- Store them in air tight box and use as needed.
For the orange paste
- Cut the reserved oranges into small segments. Remove any seeds if any.
- Add them to the reserved water and bring to boil.
- Cover and cook until tender and mushy.
- Using a hand blender, blend the orange to smooth paste. Allow the paste to cool.
- Store in air tight jar in fridge and sue within a week.