Candied Citrus Peel

Considering how much I love citrus and sugar, this recipe is pretty dangerous.

It’s even more dangerous if you consider how some of the year’s most delectable citrus, blood orange, Meyer lemon, Texas ruby grapefruit, and yuzu (a Japanese citrus — try it if you can find it!), are all in season right now.

If you can boil water, you can make candied peel. No joke!

Uh… and if you can’t, there’s a comprehensive how-to on Serious Eats that will either seriously help you or give you a serious case of the giggles.

I used oranges this time around, because I have big plans for em. Plans that involve chocolate and almond and shortbread.

More on that later. Let’s just focus on peel for now!

Meringue Bones

I have big plans for Halloween. Hoo yeah.

I’m gonna dress up a stressed-out student locked in a tiny apartment. I’ve got all details of my costume already worked out — no make-up, a ponytail, ratty sweatshirt, leggings, and flip-flops for when I need to leave my room and go pay the pizza guy.

And, when I’m not digging out loonies from my laundry fund to give to the pizza guy, I’m hatching big plans for Halloween… they involve cupcakes, but they start with meringue bones…

Firstly, I did a lot of reading about meringues before attempting to make meringue cookies.

Here are some key things I learned that you need to remember: egg whites can be very finicky and difficult to work with if you don’t get everything exactly right.

1) Step one on the road to getting it exactly right: all of your equipment needs to be 100% clean and free of grease. Just to be on the safe side, I gave my bowls and utensils a good rub down with white vinegar.

2) Egg whites won’t whip up properly if there’s any fat in the whites, so you need to be careful when separating them from the yolks. If you break a yolk into your whites, you’ll have to start again. I recommend separating eggs while the eggs are cold, and then waiting 30 minutes to warm the whites to room temperature — 3) especially because egg whites need to be at room temperature, too.

Oh — and, unless you’re a machine, 4) you’ll definitely need a stand-mixer and a pastry bag with a 1cm round tip to make these.