I need some candied orange peel, and I can’t find any. Is there some weird orange peel shortage in California?
SF bay area dopers, if you’ve seen any anywhere, can you tell me where please?
not in your area, but I get mine at an Armenian supermarket. Maybe try ethnic markets?
I’m also not in the Bay area (but I’m nosy). What are you needing it for, and how quickly do you need it?
If you’re not in a great hurry, you can search online for it.
Every few years I make it–it’s a bit of an ordeal, but it’s pretty tasty. (I put it on brownies for a nice mosaic look).
It’s not THAT hard considering the results.
God, I love candied orange peel. Plain as decoration or dipped in chocolate.
I want it for making christmas cookies (not fruit cake, I promise!).
I don’t object making candied orange peels myself, I just want to get the baking done real soon now.
Well, if you don’t have any luck finding it locally, it’s there on Amazon.
Have you checked Trader Joe’s? Do they have Trader Joe’s in the Bay area? Good luck.
I’m looking for it myself and been told that Whole Foods carries it. Trader Joe’s does not (or at least the one out here doesn’t). TJ’s also stopped carrying crystallized ginger so I hope Whole Foods does as well.
We get ours at Armenian markets as well. They’re still around and as delicious as ever.
I couldn’t find it for love nor money either, in South Carolina! I needed an ass-ton of it for an 1850’s fruitcake I made today. I just figured the antebellum housewife probably couldn’t always find what she needed either and did without.
I was going to make my own, but I needed a lot and this snuck up on me. Been in the oven two hours now, I think.
The Pasta Shop in Berkeley has it (expensive, though, like everything else in that store). I think Country Cheese in Berkeley also has it - if they do, it will be cheaper than The Pasta Shop.
I did find it at Whole Foods today. It is carried in the same area that they carry the salts in giant jars so someone has to measure it for you. In my store, that was very close to the deli area. They carried candied lemon and candied orange peel and the prices were outrageous (42 a lb for the orange and ~35) for the lemon).
1850’s fruitcake? Is it different from the crappy stuff you get in a brick at the grocery store? I tasted that recently and it was one of the single most disgusting foods I’ve ever put in my mouth.
I’d be willing to try it again if someone could convince me that I wouldn’t gag.
It wasn’t like fruitcake at all, really. More currants than candied fruit. People seemed to really like it. Here’s the recipe from Godey’s Ladies’ Book:
To two pounds of flour well sifted unite
Of loaf sugar ounces sixteen;
Two pounds of fresh butter, with eighteen fine eggs,
And four pounds of currants washed clean;
Eight ounces of almonds well blanched and cut small,
The same weight of citron sliced;
Of orange and lemon-peel candied one pound,
And a gill of pale brandy uniced;
A large nutmeg grated; exact half an ounce
Of allspice, but only a quarter
Of mace, coriander, and ginger well ground,
Or pounded to dust in a mortar.
An important addition is cinnamon, which
Is better increased than diminished;
The fourth of an ounce is sufficient. Now this
May be baked four good hours till finished.
You’re probably going to want to at least half that recipe. 
What is loaf sugar?
What is a citron?
What is a gill and how do you unice it?
What temp do you bake it on?
That’s a really big recipe. Is that supposed to be a loaf? A cake? A dozen loaves?
Use regular sugar. Citron is that gross fruitcake stuff - I left it out. A gill is about 4 fluid ounces and it’s “uniced” to rhyme. Google knows all these things. Cook it low, just like you would a modern fruitcake.
Halved it filled three loaf pans.
Thanks. I’d have Googled it myself but I was reading on the sly while my boyfriend was unpacking. I was supposed to be helping him. Luckily for me, he’s on the phone with work now so I have an undetermined amount of time to screw off.
They have Trader Joe’ses up here (thank the FSM TJ’s came to the bay area in the early 90’s, don’t know what I’d do without them!). TJ’s used to sell the best dry, candied orange peel, cut into little chicklet (remember those?) shapes. Then after I was completely addicted, they stopped carrying it. TJ’s is the abusive boyfriend of retail chains, I love them and hate them so very very much.
I’ve checked the three Whole Foodes nearest my home and office, and none of them have it.
I’m going to try Andronico’s after work today, and if they don’t have it I’m going to give up.
That’s disgustingly outrageous. My market sells it for 3.99 a pound.