Candied Buddha's Hand

Maybe you remember last week when I posted a blog post about the strange citrus fruit that we have in our garden. In that post I talked to you about the Buddha's hand, one of the strangest looking fruit that looks as if it has fingers. There were 3 fruits on our little tree this year, one of which we gave away and we had 2 left.

One of the two will undergo such a long process that I do not know whether it will work so I will keep you posted about it, but the third one I decided last night to do something quick with it and enjoy it today for breakfast. So I thought that it would be a good idea to crystalize it and have it with my yogurt this morning. It is an easy recipe with the only disadvantage that you have to wait a whole night for the candied fruit to dry..

With the same process you can caramelise other citrus fruit with fat and plump pith. Even some oranges will be great that way.. So give it a try and I think that you are going to love it!

Diffuculty: 1 of 3

Duration:30 minutes prep και 30 mins boiling

Serves:an army

Ingredients

1 Buddha hand fruit

300 g plain sugar and extra for coating the fruit

250 g of water

1 tblsp of simple honey

Method

Wash and dry the fruit.

With a sharp knife we cut it in 1 cm cubes.

We taste a little bit to see if it is bitter. Usually this fruit it is not bitter but there are many variates of it and some are more bitter than others. Also as we can make this recipe with other citrus fruit we must certainly try it.

So if the fruit is bitter we boil it for 2 minutes in cold water. We drain and repeat the process as many times we want to make the fruit taste as we like it. We must be warned though that the more we boil it the more some of the aroma goes away...

As for me i like it bitter.

With the fruit that I had, I did not have to do that process.

We put the fruit with plenty of cold water in a medium pot and we boil it for 20 minutes or as long it takes for it to become soft and a bit translucent. Drain, throw away the water and put the fruit back in the pot.

Add the 300 g of sugar, the 250 g of water and the honey and bring to a boil.

We simmer it till it reaches 108-109 Celsius. We stir more often as time goes by... It usually takes about 10-15 minutes depending on the stove etc..

Remove from heat and let the fruit in the syrup for an hour.

After that we can either store the fruit and syrup in a jar in the fridge. It lasts there for a year.

Otherwise we can drain it, keep the syrup to use with yogurt, or add some fizzy water or champagne to it to make a nice cocktail.

The fruit we coat with the extra sugar and we let it dry overnight. The next morning we shake off the excess sugar that we keep to use in a cake and we store the candied fruit in a jar.. It lasts many months like that.

We can use it with our breakfast (on yogurt or in with our cereal) or use it chopped up in a cake or other baking goods like a brioche..