Candied Orange Peels

After I got home from work this afternoon, I was pumped up to start some holiday baking. I'm off tomorrow, a day that I am officially claiming as entirely my own, to do with what I want, and I want to spend it entirely in the kitchen.

Tonight, as a pre-baking-marathon exercise (a warm-up, if you will) I decided to try my hand at candied orange peel. I mean, why not?

Oranges? Check.
Sugar? Check.
Water? Check.

Here's what I came up with:

Some thoughts on this recipe (which can be found here, at Sophistimom.com):

• I started this venture at approximately 11pm. Granted, not exactly an early start. However, it took until around approximately 3am for me to finish. With all of the tedious boiling and draining rubbish, this took entirely too much time for something that essentially ended up tasting a lot like an orange slice. No, not that kind. This kind:

• Five oranges seemed like a lot of peel at the beginning. But in the end, I probably only got about 2 cups worth of candied peel out of the batch.
• I initially intended to dip these babies in white or semi-sweet chocolate after finishing and packaging them up as holiday gifts, but I'll certainly pass now. I've already put far too much energy into, essentially, sugared fruit.
• One unexpected delight that came out of this recipe was the orange simple syrup that resulted from boiling the orange peels in sugar and water. I couldn't bear to throw it away, so I poured that sweet, syrupy goodness into a squeeze bottle and stuck it in the fridge. If you're looking for cozy, you can find it in a hot cup of tea with a shot of that delish, orange-infused simple syrup.
• I think that this recipe would be well suited for a very large batch of "left-overs" from oranges over time. A great way to utilize something you'd otherwise just throw away. Perhaps, in the future, I'll save up my orange peels (you can just throw those puppies in the freezer until you're ready to use them) and try again. Or rather, to be honest...most likely not.

All-in-all, I love the idea. I certainly think an application of these peels in some way is the way to go (i.e. the dipping in chocolate or dicing them for "chocolate pops") because if I had to do it all over again just for the peels, I'd have much rather headed to the gas station to grab two-for-a-dollar bags of those wretchedly delicious orange-like candies.