Candied Orange Peels & How to use the cone method

Just a quick congrats to the Robinsons on a beautiful wedding. I was so happy to be a part of your special day, so thank you.

I wanted to adorn my mimosa cupcakes with something and knew that candied orange peels would be a great option. Of course I had to make life more difficult and make them at home. Turns out they were a lot easier than I expected. For some of the cupcakes I just split the orange peels in two and stuck one end into the icing. For others, I chopped up the orange peels into smaller pieces and treated them like sprinkles. You can do whatever fits your fancy. These were also the first filled cupcakes that I featured, so I thought a quick tutorial on the cone method would help.


First you want to make sure that the cupcakes are completely cooled before doing this.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, using a paring knife cut a circle out of the cupcake. You want to go in at a slight angle. As you are coming to the end of the circle, using the end of your knife, scoop out the "cone" that you have created. Remove from the cupcake and fill as desired. I just used a spoon for the orange curd. I have also read that you can use small biscuit cutters or an apple corer to make your cone. Once the cupcake is filled, cut off a small piece of the bottom of your cone to make room for the filling. Replace the cone just like completing a puzzle and frost as desired.


Ingredients:
1 large naval orange
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
water for blanching

What you'll do:

Cut tops and bottoms off of the orange and score the orange into quarters, cutting down only into the peel and not into the fruit. I also ran my knife around the tops and the bottom of the orange. Peel the skin of the orange in large pieces, reserve the orange for another recipe or eat it ;). Using a paring knife, run your knife along the skin of the orange removing as much pith as you can without taking away from the skin. Cut the peel into strips about 1/4-inch wide. Put the orange peel in a large saucepan with cold water to cover, bring to a boil over high heat. Then pour off the water. Repeat 1 or 2 more times depending up how assertive you want the orange peels to be. I ended up doing this for a total of 3 times. Remove the orange peels from the pan.

In a heavy saucepan, stir sugar and water together until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil. Once the sugar water is boiling, add in the sliced orange peels. Lower heat and simmer the peels for 15 minutes. In the meantime, set up your drying station. I used a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and then laid my cooling rack over top of it (as you see in the picture above). Remove peels from the water using tongs and lay on cooling rack. Let dry for at one hour.

Here is where you can get creative. I just used mine for garnish, but you could also melt some chocolate and dip one end of the peel into it.

Source: Combination of these two recipes