Chocolate-covered orange peels
Servings: 120 pcs
Ingredients
- 4 pcs Oranges (Peels + Juice from ½ orange)
- 250 g Sugar
- 500 ml Water
- ½ pcs Lemon
- 1 pcs Vanilla bean
- 1 pcs Cinnamon stick
- 300 g Dark Chocolate 60-70% Chocolate
Instructions
Day 1
- Cut the peel of the oranges in four big parts.
- Cover the peels with cold water, bring to boil and strain (discarding the water).
- Repeat the above operation twice.
- Cut the peels into 3mm thick sticks.
- Bring to boil 1 l of water, the sugar, juice from ½ lemon and ½ orange, a vanilla bean cut in two and the cinnamon stick in order to create a syrup.
- Add the orange peels, cover and reduce the temperature until the mixture just simmers (very small bubbles should appear on the surface)
- Let the mixture simmer for 1h15 minutes and then leave the mixture in the syrup until the next day.
Day 2
- Remove the orange peels from the syrup, let them drip off in a sift, and dry them off on a kitchen paper.
- Leave them spread out on a baking paper to dry until the follow day.
Day 3: The simple version
- Melt the chocolate, dip the orange peels using a fork and leave to cool on a baking paper.
Day 3: The best version with tempered chocolate
- Put the chocolate in a bowl into hot (but not boiling!) water in a saucepan.
- Stir regularly and bring the chocolate to a temperature of 50-55°c. You need to use a cooking thermometer and carefully watch the temperature.
- Remove the bowl from the saucepan and place it in cold water until the temperature of the chocolate is down to 35°c. Then place it at room temperature until it reaches 26-27°c. Stir regularly.
- Put the bowl back into hot water and stir until the temperature of the chocolate reaches 31-32°c
- Remove the bowl from the hot water and dip the orange peels in the chocolate before leaving them to cool down on a baking paper.
Notes
Why do we temper the chocolate? When the chocolate has tempered, which means it has been heated through a specific heat curve, it will pre-crystallize the cocoa butter. When you do this the chocolate will be smooth and glossy and it will not melt on your fingers as quickly. Each chocolate color has its own temperature curve to follow.