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Recipes and text by Camilla Wynne. Photography by Mickaël A. Bandassak. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
If you're new to candying, start with this method. It has its limits in that it will only work on relatively small pieces of fruit and it won’t make a product that is completely shelf-stable, but you can’t beat it for speed! The final product works beautifully for baking with or serving on its own. Only use fruit with a strong cell structure that can handle a hearty simmer. Good candidates include pineapples, kiwis, quinces, pears, cherries, apple peels and thin-skinned citrus like clementines and kumquats.
I prefer to use ratios for this method. The ratio for the syrup is 1:1 water to sugar by cup, so make as much or as little as you need, depending on how much fruit you have. While I generally prefer to measure by weight, what’s important here is that there is enough syrup to cover the fruit.—Camilla Wynne
190 mL (3⁄4 cup) water
150 g (3⁄4 cup) sugar
1 tbsp glucose or light corn syrup
To prepare the fruit, peel, core if necessary and slice about 1⁄4 in. thick. Cherries should be halved and pitted. Clementines can be cut into six to eight wedges. Kumquats can be sliced or quartered.
To candy, in a medium saucepan, bring the water, sugar and glucose to a boil over high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the fruit and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook until the fruit is uniformly glossy and translucent, from 15 to 45 min, depending on the fruit. Soft fruits like cherries will take less time, while dense fruits like quinces will take the longest. Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the syrup at room temperature, preferably overnight, before storing in a glass jar with its syrup for up to one month or straining and drying on a wire rack.
Done making your candied fruit? The next step (besides snacking, obviously) is whipping up a dessert that puts your candied fruit front and centre. Camilla Wynne's Riz à l’Impératrice and Welsh Cakes are a couple of our favourites.
Excerpted from Nature's Candy by Camilla Wynne. Copyright © 2024 Camilla Wynne. Photographs by Mickaël A. Bandassak. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.