Chocolate orange pieces

These delicious chocolate dipped pieces of orange peel are very easy to make and even easier to eat. They only require 3 ingredients, one of which you would normally throw out (how about that for frugal?) They do however take a bit of time, but that isn’t necessarily bad, as it is one of the things that many of us have lots of right now. Why not give yourself an Easter treat? You can pig out and eat them all, but they keep brilliantly in the fridge, for at least a week.

Ingredients - makes 12/16 pieces depending on the size of your orange.

1 large orange

300g caster sugar

100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

Method

Wash the orange. Cut the orange lengthwise into quarters and carefully cut out the fruit from the peel (save for a delicious smoothie, fruit salad or sorbet).

Cut each quarter of orange rind into 3 or 4 long pieces.

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and add the orange peel pieces. Holding the pieces down as much as possible with a spoon, blanch for about 30 seconds. Drain and rinse under cold water. Then repeat this step, starting with fresh water.

Pat the peel as dry as possible and then leave to dry further, this can take 12 or more hours.

Make a sugar syrup: heat 300 ml of water with the sugar, stir occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. This takes 5 minutes or so. Bring the sugar syrup to the boil and then add the orange peel. Simmer for about 90 minutes, pushing the peel down to submerge it from time to time.

Take the peel out of the syrup and cool and dry on a cake rack. This can take up to a day.

When the peel is dry, break the chocolate into small pieces and melt it in a small bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water.

When the chocolate is completely melted, remove the bowl from the heat and dip each orange peel strip into the melted chocolate, so that it is half covered in chocolate*. Cool on a cake rack and store, covered, in the fridge on parchment paper. Eat as required!

There will be melted chocolate remaining, but it is difficult to dip the orange into less. For an extra treat, spoon the remaining chocolate out into a small parchment lined tin and sprinkle with nuts, seeds and dried fruit of your choice. Harden in the fridge. Delicious.