With a sharp knife, remove the peel from the fruit in wide strips, cutting slightly into the pulp. Keep the peeled fruit in a cool place. You can cut them into thin slices and add a spoonful of the syrup obtained at the end of the recipe to make a tasty fruit salad.
Regularly cut the peel into strips of about 5 mm / 0.2". (You can keep any scraps that can be used chopped up).
The peels now need to be blanched so that they lose some of their bitterness.Start with the lemon peels, which need an extra bath: in a saucepan, bring enough water to boil to cover the lemon peels, plunge them into the boiling water and boil for a minute, then drain them.Repeat the operation, boiling enough to cover the lemon peels + the orange peels. Plunge all the peels into the boiling water and leave to boil for 1 minute, drain them and repeat the process once more.
Sirup preparation
Weigh your peels and add their weight in sugar and their weight in water to the pan (if you want more syrup for future recipes, you can double these quantities).
Add the whole spices and the spoonful of honey and bring gently to the boil. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the syrup is thickened and the peel is translucent.
Final touch
You can now :- either store the peels and their syrup in a jar until the next time you use them: in a jar sterilised in boiling water, they can be kept in a cool place for at least a month.- or dry the peels to roll them in granulated sugar and make orangettes: drain the candied peels on a rack or with a sieve and leave them to dry for about an hour. Then roll them in the sugar to coat them completely. The orangettes can be eaten plain or coated with melted dark chocolate and, when well dried, will keep for several weeks in the fridge or in a tin.or of course do a bit of both :)