Lemon Candies?

[jmridd]

I'm planning a menu to make for a friend all around lemons, and I'd like to serve a candied piece of lemon at the very end, but I don't know of the means to go about making the candies...

In my mind I envision the candies being about a quarter-inch cube and covered in granulated sugar. Sorta chewy, sorta soft, some juice, but also dry? My initial, and only idea, was to cut up the lemon as such- square off, remove all peel, cube, slowly dry out in an oven around 150-200F? Pull, very lightly coat in squeezed lemon juice, and then toss in sugar. I've read through methods for candying peel by blanching and cooking to oblivion in simple syrup, but thats not the product I'm going for...

Any feedback at all would be Greatly appreciated.

[miladyinsanity]

Maybe pate de fruit with an actual piece of lemon in it?

[Kerry Beal]

I'd check out Andiesenji's recipe for microwave candied citrus peel here.

I'd candy the peel in large pieces (ie peel the lemon in 4 pieces) then cut into the size you want.

Edited March 7, 2007 by Kerry Beal (log)

[alanamoana]

sounds to me like what you are attempting is probably a bit too intense, especially for lemon.

if candying is too sweet/involved/cloying, i have to agree with miladyinsanity and would opt for something like a pate de fruit.

another option is taking the peel, pureeing it and sweetening it a touch with some sugar and creating a gelee or agar with the juice and adding the pureed peel back in for texture. if you use the right amount of agar or gelatin, you should be able to cube it up very nicely. you can control the sweetness better in this manner than with a pate de fruit which would require too much sugar to set the pectin.

you can also control the flavor by using different sugars, remember to use a pinch of salt to balance things out and probably some vanilla bean would be nice to round out the flavor too.

of course, you can go all molecular as well

[nikkib]

or lemon macaroons mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm