When it comes to baking traditions, in my books this is the time of the year to make anything from Stollen to Panettone or Pandoro. For that I went through some serious preparatory work this time. I have been working diligently on growing my own “lievito madre” or natural yeast starter. I want to make everything as authentic as possible. For the starter recipe I am following it takes 31 days of feeding the starter before is ready to be used in baking.
I am almost there, but in the meantime the celebrations every year start with our Slava Sv. Niklola (St.Nicholas), our family patron saint day. For that occasion I made Chocolate Orangettes.
At first sight they might look like nothing special, but they have a surprisingly interesting flavour and I would say they are delicious! The combination of chocolate and orange has always been a winner. Our friends and family that we hosted for Slava loved it!
You can buy these orangettes in specialty stores for about $30 for a little 150g pouch or you can make your own at a tiny fraction of that price. In my case it worked out as a convenient progression since I already needed candied orange peels for a panettone recipe. I always make my own, there is no comparison with store bought variety. If you are in doubt I suggest to try it out and see the difference by yourself!
Once I made the candied orange peel it was just one short step to chocolate coating and the discovery of another gem in a confectionary world of delicacies!
Chocolate organettes are beautiful, refreshing, simple and delicious!
To cook candied orangettes (and the same process is for candied lemon peel) we will use the equal amounts (by volume) of sugar and water. Start with weighing the cut orange strips, the sugar added will be double the weight of the strips.
Do not coat orange strips in sugar if you want to make orangettes coated in chocolate. Roll the strips in sugar only for storage purposes or if you like to enjoy them in their plain form.
The recipe has been adopted from my favorite pastry chef Bruno Albouze, however I deviated in the chocolate coating recipe, making it somewhat simpler. The reason was very practical: I already had leftover melted chocolate from sour cherry chocolate balls recipe and it was simple enough just to use what I had on hand.
| Cook Time | 3 hr |
| Servings |
g
|
- 450 g organic orange peel
- 900 g granulated sugar
- 800 g filtered water
- 100 g dark semisweet chocolate (min. 70% cocoa)
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
- confectioner's sugar for dusting
Ingredients
Candied Orange Peel
Chocolate Coating
|
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- Cut each orange by length first in quarters and then each quarter in half, again by length.
- Set each orange wedge on a cutting board, orange peel down. Lay sharp kitchen knife flat and carefully cut the flesh from the peel. Save the flesh for fruit salad or other similar use.
- Again cutting by length, cut each rind wedge into 5 mm (1/4") wide strips.
- Put the strips in a medium size saucepan and cover with cold water.
- Over high heat (10 out of 10) bring the water and orange strips to boil.
- Strain the strips, rinse with fresh water. Turn the strips back into the saucepan, cover with water and bring to boil again. Repeat the whole process 3 times in total.
- Add strips, weighed sugar and water to the medium size saucepan. Over high heat (10 out of 10) bring boil, reduce heat to low simmer. Cook at low simmer for 2 hours.
- Take the saucepan off the heat cover and leave on the stove to cool off overnight.
- Strain the orange strips and save the syrup. Over high heat (10 out of 10) cook the syrup until reaches 104ºC (219ºF), set aside and let cool to room temperature.
- Put the drained orange strips into large and clean sealable container. Pour over cooled syrup, close and keep refrigerated. Stored this way, orange peel can last for months. Note: If coated in sugar and refrigerated, orange strips can be stored up to a year.
- Put orange strips on a cooling rack suspended over a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Set aside for 1-2 days until dried out and not sticky.
- Melt the chocolate over double boiler, stir in vegetable oil. Let cool slightly.
- Dip each orange strip into melted chocolate glaze, drain and place on a parchment paper to set. You can make coating variations by coating half strips, whole strips and some strips after being fully coated you can immediately roll into small bowl with powdered sugar. This will give the chocolate coated strips a haze-like look.
- Store strips in the fridge in a sealed container.
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