*NOW WITH UPDATE: See below
The neighbors came over, maybe a year ago now, and one of them, a Hungarian physicist, brought along candied orange peel he’d made from his grandmother’s recipe. The physicist is the nicest human on earth, but his grandmother is the one I love; I’d love anyone who thought up those orange peels, their orangey goodness and little spike of bitter, the soft white sweet pith and the dense, bitey, red-golden skin. I had raptures all over the dining room table. “Yes, of course you can have the recipe,” said the physicist. “But I must tell you, you need to be careful how you make them.”
“Oh I know about sugar,” I said, and told him about the hot fudge sauce I made once and reheated twice, and the second time, it made a standing cage over the melted ice cream and when I ate it anyway, I chipped a tooth; and the little left in the pan had bonded to the metal and the pan had to be thrown away. So the physicist gave me the recipe and the most careful directions, and I made the orange peels and they were perfect, as good as any Hungarian grandmother’s. Then I made them many more times until suddenly, one day, some mysterious force in the universe shifted.
The recipe no longer works. I continue to control the hell out of the variables. I use the same amount of orange peel, two-oranges-worth, every time. I use the same 1:1 ratio of water to sugar and the same absolute amounts, 1.5 cups each. I use a pan of the same size, the same stingy amount of stirring, the same low simmer until the water gradually boils off and bubbles foam on top of bubbles, and no liquid remains. I get them out of the pan fast, spread them on plates, let them cool. They’re tooth-chippingly hard, they’re like glass. I throw out whole batches of them, though the Hungarian physicist says, on consult, that if he leaves one in his mouth it eventually melts. After an hour or something, maybe a whole afternoon. I am in despair, I can talk of nothing else.
The physicist thinks the glassiness/chewiness depends on the thickness of the orange peels and certainly that’s a variable I haven’t controlled. And physicists are usually right about everything, so he’s probably right. But I think it’s the chemistry of sugar: it’s complex and finicky, disturbingly so.
Dissolve sugar in water and heat until the water is driven off. [Digression: why fool with water, why not just heat the sugar? I did that once, put sugar in a pan, forgot to add water, turned on the heat, thought about something else for a while, and when I looked again at the pan, the sugar was a molten, golden syrup. Perfect. You think that ever happened again?] As the water leaves, the sugar solution gets more concentrated and hotter. [Digression on heat: the redoubtable Shirley Corriher says not to use lined copper pans, nonstick pans, or plastic stirring spoons because they’ll all melt; metal stirring spoons get too hot to touch.] As the solution heats and condenses, its texture changes. Drop a solution that’s 92% sugar into water and it forms a ball you can shape; drop a 95% solution into water, and it forms flexible threads; drop a 99% solution and the threads snap; and at 100% concentration, no water left, the solution goes from clear amber to brown to black, from 320 degrees to 350 degrees, quickly, so quickly, take your eyes off it, it happened and you throw away the pan.
But sugar is not only complex, it’s iniquitous: you can’t believe those numbers. The modern kitchen scientist directs you to guide yourself through this process with a candy thermometer, but the also-redoubtable Harold McGee says that even in the lab, let alone in my kitchen, all those numbers “can vary quite widely and are notoriously inaccurate at higher temperatures.” In fact, don’t even believe the sugar. Corriher says that sucrose, when heated, breaks down into smaller sugars which recombine into different sugars which break down again into even different sugars, and by the time you’ve reached the black stage, you’ve gone through 128 different sugars, each with its own color, small, taste, chemical formula, and (I add) texture.
And now I’m outraged. All I want is candied orange peel, it’s not too much to ask, and instead I get this lethal complexity, this intricate villainy. Last time I just plain took the peels out of the pan before the water boiled away and they’re quite good but now I’ve got a wholly different problem: even cooled, dried, and refrigerated, they’re so sticky I have to surgically separate them from each other. So I complained again to the Hungarian physicist and he suggested I dip them in melted dark chocolate.
And now the miasma lifts, the despair clears. Chewy orange peels covered with dark chocolate. I am at peace with the universe.
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UPDATE: The Hungarian physicist did a noble experiment. He assumed I was right and in spite of the recipe having worked before, the peels could no longer now be boiled nearly dry. He took them out “when they were beginning to look a little glassy — how do you say that, glazed?” Me: “Glassy is perfect.” — and laid them out on a plate, not touching each other, and let them dry out for two days. I have replicated that experiment and get the same results. He says, as he said before, that the key variable and the only variable that actually varies is the thickness of the orange peel.
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photo of candied orange peel by Jocelyn McAuley; and of sugar Sanjay Acharya
We make these all the time in Florida – except with honey. Quarter the peels, layer with Sourwood or Orange-blossom honey, bake 20 minutes at 325 or 350. Done and done – chewy, semi-sweet, and amazing. My mom called them “Tampa Candy”.
An advantage of taking the peels out before the water boils away is you have a tasty syrup to use in cocktails.
In the flan recipe from Diana Kennedy’s Cuisines of Mexico, she instructs you to melt the sugar (no water) without stirring. Just tilt the saucepan.
I have often wondered about the chemical process that happens when you add sugar (fake sugar doesn’t work) to strawberries. Any insight?
Speaking of Harold McGee, he had an update on sugar caramelization that you might find worth reading: http://www.curiouscook.com/site/2012/09/caramelization-new-science-new-possibilities.html
Therein might also lie your answer: sugar slowly breaks down over time even at room temperature. By any chance, did you buy your sugar in bulk and are now working from an older supply?
This made me laugh! I haven’t candied orange peels in some time, but now that you’ve reminded me of them, I’m simply craving them. Mine have always come out sticky, too. Perhaps I will take your chocolate coating recommendation.
Buck, I’m going to do that next. I’m fairly fed up with throwing out glass orange peels, so thank you. Ed, I can think of several uses of orange syrup — wouldn’t it be good over Gail’s strawberries? — but the cocktail idea is very sound. Quinn, I used to make creme caramel (or flan) and did what Kennedy suggests but the range of outcomes was extreme. Gail, I’m not sure what process happens with strawberries — the sugar just somehow melts, right? John, that’s fascinating and now that you mention it, I have indeed seen yellowish sugar; but I wasn’t using it. Callie, I haven’t tried chocolate yet but I’d think you could just melt it and dip the oranges into it like making candles.
“And physicists are usually right about everything”
Interesting story. What about the recipe?
I used to make these from the Fanny Farmer recipe. (http://www.bartleby.com/87/0033.html)
You boil your peel in water first, then strip off the pith and boil them in sugar syrup. I’m not sure if you included this step.
My Uncle, Daniel Talbot Finkbeiner, long-time Chair of the Math Dept at Kenyon College, had a tradition of making this magical fruit-candy from post-Christmas fruit basket oranges, preferring the “Harry & David” varieties.
Michael, I’m going to guess Harry & David’s had thick skins. That’s what the Hungarian physicist thinks and I can’t gainsay him.
David, yes, they are, and if you doubt me, ask one. Rachel, that’s a variant: the Hungarian recipe, you leave the pith on the orange peels and soak them for a week, changing water daily, then the answer to Michael: 1.5 c. sugar, 1.5 c. water, bring to simmer, add peel of two oranges, keep simmering until water is gone. Lay out sparsely on plates, turning them until they dry. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Definitely thick-skinned. That trait must run in the family.
If they are sticky, have you considered rolling them in something? I seem to remember that gummy bears are rolled in something so they don’t stick together. The photo of the orange peels look like they might have been rolled in sugar… just an idea. Thanks for the article. It satisfied my “mental sweet tooth” !
@Ann Thanks. I will give it a few tries.
This post makes me want to run back to your house and spend a day testing recipes. My mouth is watering remembering that wonderful Hungarian grandmother’s recipe.
You might check the source of your sugar. Beet and other sources are a different chemical make-up than cane and sometimes don’t work well for candy-making. And thanks for the reminder, so yummy!
Did you change the source type of sugar? Once my jams wouldn’t gel per my normal recipe. Couldn’t figure out what was up until I realized that I was using sugar from beets and not my normal cane sugar. Switched back to cane and it came out perfect.
Re: The sugar and strawberries thing. Chefs call it maceration. Sugar is hygroscopic. So the water is drawn out of the strawberries and you get lovely syrup.
Lisa and Christie: the source of sugar didn’t change — the physicist asked that question too — and wasn’t beet sugar, just Dominos whatever that is.
Sandy: I knew it was called maceration but I never knew why. So “hygroscopic” means “stuff that pulls water out of things?” The syrup really is lovely, isn’t it.
Since physicists are usually right about everything, try finding the perfect orange (peels). Have you hit the farmer’s market and tried the peels? Happy trials!
Did the recipe failures correspond to a seasonal change? Home confections are usually made in the winter when it is dry and cool – sticky heat makes sticky candy. I know the ideal ambient temperature for butter and chocolate is sixty degrees; candy may be slightly different.
I always have to adjust my bread recipe when the seasons change.
Thank you, Rachel. I know what you’re talking about — my mother’s English toffee and fudge were different in different humidities, though I’m not sure she paid attention to the outdoor temperature. I still think the syrup’s temperature is a big variable and I even went so far as to measure it but by that time the syrup was so low in the pan I couldn’t get a reading.