Sunday 12 December 2010

Make your own crystallized ginger

I needed some crystallized ginger for a festive recipe I was planning to make this weekend. However, the price of the crystallized ginger in the markets just didn’t appeal to me. I don’t know about you, but there are some ingredients I’m just not willing to use due to the cost.However, I found a recipe for making candied ginger in one of my canning books so I decided to make my own crystallized ginger. Now I can have my cake and eat it too! 

Making crystallized ginger is really easy! I’m not sure why I didn’t do this before, but I will definitely make it again.

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Crystallized Ginger

Recipe from The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard.

Makes: 1 cup

Ingredients:
1 cup thinly sliced peeled gingerroot
cold water
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup granulated sugar
extra granulated sugar

Directions:

Peel the gingerroot and slice thinly or cut it into small pieces.

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Place sliced ginger in a small saucepan and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover and boil gently for 15 minutes. Drain repeat process with fresh cold water.

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Combine ginger, 3/4 cup water and sugar in a saucepan. 

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Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and boil gently, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until liquid is evaporated completely.  You’ll need to watch carefully during the last 10 minutes or so to prevent it from scorching.

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Put extra sugar in a flat dish about 1/4 inch thick.  Remove a few pieces of ginger with a fork and toss them in sugar to coat both sides; place on cooling rack set on a baking pan.  I put it on parchment paper because I had cut the ginger into pieces rather than slices. 

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Repeat until all slices are done. Dry in a 200 degrees F oven for 1 hour or until ginger feels soft and no longer sticky.  Let stand at room temperature for 1 day to finish drying.

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Place slices in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator.

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I’ll be using some of this candied ginger in a festive biscotti recipe.  More to come on that one…

Thanks for joining us in the Bread Experience bread-baking blog.  We hope you’ll join us again soon.

Happy Baking!
Cathy

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