Lemon Peel Candy
🍋 Turning Meyer Lemons Into Something Magical:
If your home is anything like ours, Meyer lemons seem to multiply overnight — bright, fragrant, sunny yellow fruits filling every basket and bowl. They’re sweeter than regular lemons, softer, and absolutely perfect for simple kid-friendly kitchen projects.
One of our favorite ways to use them?
Turning the peels into sparkling lemon peel candy.
If you’ve never had citrus peel candy, think of it like a homemade version of Sunkist fruit candy — bright and citrusy, lightly chewy, and sweet without being overwhelming. The flavor is deeper and more real though, because it’s coming straight from the peel itself.
It feels old-fashioned, thrifty, and just a little bit magical — the kind of project kids talk about long after the dishes are done.
A couple times lately, we’ve started Farm School with a story — and the kids have really enjoyed it.
It helps information stick, while still holding their attention.
So today, we’re starting with a story again.
Here we go……
🌊 A Long Way From Home
Close your eyes for a moment.
Imagine you are standing on the deck of a wooden sailing ship.
Have you ever been on a ship before?
Probably not a ship like this one.
The wooden boards creak under your feet.
The tall sails billow and snap in the wind.
The ocean stretches out in every direction — blue, endless, and always moving.
You are three weeks into a journey across the sea, sailing from England to the Americas.
There are no engines.
No motors.
This ship moves only when the wind decides to help.
Some days the wind is strong and the ship glides across the water.
Other days… it barely moves at all.
You don’t know exactly how long the journey will take.
Weeks?
Months?
No one can say.
At the start of the journey, the ship was packed with food.
There were:
Fresh bread
Cheese
Onions
Apples
Salted meat
A few lemons and oranges
But fresh food doesn’t last long on a ship — there were no refrigerators.
Within the first week or two:
The fruit was gone.
The bread grew moldy.
The cheese spoiled.
Once it went bad, there was no replacing it.
Now, three weeks into the voyage, meals look very different.
Most days you eat:
Hardtack — dry, rock-hard biscuits made of flour and water
Salted meat or fish
(kind of like very salty, sometimes flavorless beef jerky)Dried peas or beans
Water that tastes stale
Why does the water taste stale?
Because it’s been sitting for weeks in wooden barrels, slowly picking up the taste of the wood.
You chew slowly.
Everything is dry.
Salty.
Brown.
There are no fresh fruits or vegetables left.
At first, everyone just feels tired.
But after a few weeks, some sailors begin to notice changes:
Their legs feel sore and weak
Small cuts take longer to heal
Their gums feel tender
They bruise more easily
No one knows why — yet.
They don’t realize their bodies are missing something important.
The sailors didn’t know that their bodies needed vitamin C to stay strong.
Vitamin C helps:
Keep gums and skin healthy
Heal wounds
Support strong blood vessels
Without it, a sickness called scurvy slowly begins.
If the journey continues without fresh food, sailors might expect:
Bleeding gums
Loose teeth
Extreme weakness
Trouble walking
Many sailors didn’t survive long voyages —
not because of storms,
but because of what they couldn’t eat.
These lemons… they hold something precious.
They are full of vitamin C— the peels actually hold more vitamin C than the juice itself.
If sailors had known to:
Dry citrus peels
Or candy them with sugar to pull out moisture and preserve them
They could have carried that vitamin C with them much longer.
And guess what?
Eventually… people did learn this.
Sailors began bringing citrus on ships — sometimes fresh, sometimes dried.
Even forms of candied citrus peel helped protect sailors from scurvy and allowed crews to survive long journeys.
The candy wasn’t always exactly like the recipe we use today —
but the idea was the same:
use sugar and heat to preserve the peel and save the vitamin C.
That’s why citrus became so important in sea travel throughout history.
Today, we’re doing something sailors long ago would have been very thankful for.
We’re taking lemon peels — something many people throw away —
and turning them into something sweet, preserved, and powerful.
Not just candy.
But history.
Science.
And a reminder that food has always been about more than filling bellies.
🧠 History Connection Activity
Have kids imagine:
One thing they would miss most on a long voyage
One food they’d get tired of eating every day
One food they’d want to bring if they were sailors
Optional: draw their “ship meal.”
📜 A Sweet Little History of Candied Citrus Peel
Candied citrus peel has been around for over a thousand years, and its story is surprisingly rich and delicious.
Long before refrigerators existed, families needed a way to preserve fruit through the winter. Sugar was one of the earliest natural preservatives — when combined with heat, it draws out moisture and replaces it with sweetness.
By the Middle Ages, candied peel was treasured across Europe. Citrus was rare in colder regions, so bringing out candied lemon or orange peel during holidays or special gatherings was a sign of hospitality and celebration.
Sailors (see above) carried candied peel on long voyages because it stored well and offered a touch of vitamin C — a tiny taste of sunshine when they were far from home.
By the 1700s and 1800s, families in citrus-growing regions were candying peel as a matter of good stewardship. Nothing was wasted. Juice, zest, peel — every part served a purpose.
In many ways, making candied peel today connects us to generations of cooks before us — people who worked with what they had and found small joys in transforming simple ingredients into something extraordinary.
🌟 Why Meyer Lemons Make Amazing Candied Peel
Meyer lemons are naturally:
Less bitter
Thinner-skinned
Softer and more floral
Bright and sweet
Their peels candy beautifully and much faster than oranges or standard lemons.
If you’ve ever wanted a simple, hands-on activity that uses real ingredients and teaches a bit of science, this is a wonderful place to start.
🍊 Can You Use Other Citrus? Absolutely.
While Meyer lemons make beautifully soft, floral candy, almost every citrus peel can be candied at home. Oranges, tangerines, mandarins, limes, and even grapefruits all work — you just adjust the blanching and simmer time based on how thick or bitter the peel is. Thinner peels (like mandarins) candy quickly and stay delicate, while thicker peels (like grapefruit or pomelo) need a little extra time to soften and mellow.
⭐ General Rule of Thumb for Candying Any Citrus
Thin peel (Meyer lemons, mandarins, tangerines, limes):
1 blanch, 15–25 minutes simmerMedium peel (navel oranges, blood oranges, regular lemons):
1–2 blanches, 30–40 minutes simmerThick peel (grapefruit, pomelo):
2–4 blanches, 45–60 minutes simmer
Once you understand peel thickness, you can candy any citrus you have on hand.
👩🍳 How to Prepare the Meyer Lemons
One of the best parts about this project is that you can juice the lemons first and use both the juice and the peel.
Here’s what to do:
Juice your lemons for lemonade, syrup, or another recipe.
Save the spent lemon halves.
Use a spoon to scrape out the pulp so you’re left with clean peel “shells.”
Slice the peel into strips about ¼ inch wide.
That’s it — your peel is ready for candying.
🍯 How to Make Meyer Lemon Peel Candy
🍋 Try this at home:
Grab the printable Meyer Lemon Peel Candy recipe here → [Printable Recipe]
Ingredients
Peels from 3–4 Meyer lemons cut into 1/4 inch strips.
They did this was kids sissors. It was beautiful the attention to detail! I hadn’t intended on them cutting up the whole lemon peel just getting the idea of it. But some of these kids loved it and wanted more to cut.
1 cup sugar (plus extra for coating)
1 cup water
Step 1: Blanch the Peel
Place the sliced peel into a pot of water, bring to a boil, and cook 5 minutes.
Drain.
With Meyer lemons, this single blanch is usually all you need.
Step 2: Make the Syrup
Stir together:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Simmer until the sugar dissolves.
Step 3: Candy the Peel
Add the blanched peel to the syrup and simmer gently for 20–25 minutes.
You’ll know it’s ready when:
The peel turns slightly translucent
It looks shiny and flexible
Step 4: Sugar-Coat
Lift the warm peel out with tongs and toss in a bowl of sugar until coated.
Lay the pieces on parchment or a cooling rack.
Step 5: Let It Dry
Give the candy at least a few hours to firm up.
It starts sticky, then gets tacky, then crisp.
12-24 is the sweet spot but leave it until its a consistency you like.
Kids love checking its progress.
✨ Try This!
Don’t toss the syrup! Save it and use it to:
• Brush onto muffins, scones, or quick breads
• Stir into yogurt or oatmeal
• Glaze roasted veggies or chicken
• Add a splash to sparkling water for a fizzy citrus drink
• Reuse it to candy another batch of peel
🔬 The Simple Science Behind Our Candy
This is a perfect kitchen science lesson — short, sweet, and easy to understand.
The peel is full of water and citrus oils.
Blanching removes bitterness and softens the pith.
Simmering in sugar syrup draws water out of the peel.
Sugar takes its place, turning the peel into candy.
Drying lets the outside form a crisp sugar shell.
Heat changes texture.
Sugar changes structure.
Kids get to taste the transformation.
🍋 Tips for the Very Best Lemon Peel Candy
✔ Cut even strips
About ¼ inch is perfect — it softens evenly.
✔ Keep your simmer low
Big, aggressive bubbles make peel tough.
✔ Don’t boil the syrup dry
You want a little syrup left in the pot at the end.
✔ Coat the peel while warm
That’s when sugar sticks best.
✔ Let it dry completely
Even overnight is fine — it only gets better.
✔ Taste as you go
Bitterness = blanch again
Chewy = simmer longer
Sticky = coat or dry more
🍋 A Little Nutrition Bonus
One of the most surprising things about citrus peel is how nutrient-dense it is — even more so than the juice!
Here’s what you’re giving your kids (and yourself!) when you candy the peel:
More Vitamin C than the fruit itself
The highest concentration of vitamin C is in the peel, not the juice.Lots of natural fiber
The white pith that softens during simmering is packed with fiber that supports digestion.Antioxidants & bioflavonoids
These help the body fight inflammation, support immunity, and make vitamin C work even better.Essential oils
The natural lemon oils in the peel hold antimicrobial properties and give that wonderful fragrant flavor.
Even though candied peel has sugar, it’s still a sweet treat made from whole, real food — and a delicious way to enjoy nutrients that often get thrown away.
Reflection Question (Great for Closing)
End with one question:
“Why do you think people long ago worked so hard to save food instead of throwing it away?”
Let a few kids answer — you’ll get thoughtful responses.
💛 A Beautiful Little Treat
Candied Meyer lemon peel is bright, sweet, and full of sunshine. Kids love nibbling it as-is, sprinkling it on desserts, or mixing it into homemade granola. And the best part? It’s made from something most people throw away.
It’s a small lesson in resourcefulness — and a sweet reminder that real food has so much to teach us.
If you try this at home, we’d love to hear how your batch turns out! We'd love if you can tag us @k2acres.
