Candied Orange Peels

In my "free time" last month I made candied orange peels and dipped them in dark chocolate. I am not sure why I decided to make these; I don't like oranges and the process is rather long, but none-the-less, I made them and got decent reviews.

I blanched the thinly sliced rinds of 7 oranges multiple times until they were tender

Once the rinds were soft I trimmed off more of the white pith then boiled them in a simple syrup

After an hour of simmering in the sugary liquid I laid the peels out to dry over night

Up close the orange peels look kind of translucent and gummy

The next day I tossed them with sugar so that they were no longer sticky to the touch

The last step was to dip them in dark chocolate and allow that to dry as well!

The whole process took a while to complete, though I am sure if I had been able to commit more focus to them I could have done everything in one day. The longest part is letting the peels dry before sugaring them.

Brie said she liked them because they were liking eating a "gummy" food but without the gelatin (being a vegetarian she does not eat things that contain gelatin--jello, marshmallows, any gummy candy, etc.)

Along with the Candied Orange Peels I also made the super simple "Pretzel Cookies" to put in little boxes for everyone at work.

For these all you do is place round pretzels on a cookie sheet, top each one with a Rolo or Hershey kiss (I used the dark chocolate kind) and place in a oven that is set to 250 degrees for 2 minutes. You really just want to let the chocolate melt some but not run all over the place. Take these out of the oven and top with a pecan or M&M of your choice.

I did a variety of Rolo/Pecan/Kiss/M&M combinations. These are super easy to make! The lengthiest part of the whole recipe is removing the foil from the Rolos and Kisses!

These two confections concluded my holiday cooking this year! Normally I do more baking but lack of time and energy prevented that from happening.