I used this recipe from about.com as a guide in preparing the peels. The others that I found on the internet suggested boiling the rinds in plain water several times before candying them. Since I don’t mind a little bitterness in my life – and because the fruit cake was a big enough project without adding homemade candied citrus peel to its to-do list – I wanted to select a recipe that would be as short and simple as possible. However, if you don't like bitter flavors, you can reduce them by boiling the citrus peels in plain water for half an hour from one to three times before adding them to the sugar slurry that will candy them.
I used a slightly higher sugar/water ratio than they call for and added some triple sec to the slurry to give the citrus flavor a little extra oomph. I also threw in a little salt, because I’m totally on the salt-in-desserts bandwagon. Otherwise, I made this more or less as instructed.
Peeling the citrus is rather time consuming, especially if you’re as particular as I am about cutting down to just the right amount of pith and peel. However, it’s a soothing kind of task. Once you get into the dicing and peeling, you can kind of let your mind go while your fingers do the work.
I didn’t mean for that to sound quite so dirty.
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