The Great British Bake Off will fill your heads with visions of Chelsea buns and Hot cross buns and candied citrus. This is a great recipe. I’ve made this twice and I’m yet to make any chelsea buns but as an after dinner snack, mixed peel is delicious with some dark chocolate.

As usual- I went with the Alton Brown recipe. He asks you to peel the zest using a peeler. Other recipes use the whole peel – pith and all and have to boil the peel multiple times.

Step 1- When anyone at home eats an orange or uses a lime/lemon- peel the zest into long strips and store it in a ziplock bag in the freezer till you have enough. Make sure the family cooperates, threaten them with loss of all citrus fruit if they don’t

Step 2: Once you have the zest of 4-6 oranges and 1-3 lime/lemons- put them in a pan with 3 cups of water. Boil for 15 minutes and strain

Step 3: Next comes the candy making. Add enough water to cover the peels and add the same amount of sugar by volume and simmer away for an hour or two. Measure the temperature every 5 minutes or so and when it starts climbing over 212F- use a heat proof glove (sugar splatter will burn your skin right off) and measure the temperature every few minutes till it hits 250F (around hard ball stage)

Step4: Pour over a wire rack and seperate and dry for 24-48 hours. The candied peel is ready when it makes a shattering sound as you drop it (Mary Berry tests it like that). The syrup is delicious too in cocktails.