See these huge piles of orange peels? They’re left over from preparing Ambrosia for a function I catered. I carefully wrapped them in Saran Wrap & refrigerated them. Today they are going to become candied orange peel!
Orange peels leftover from making ambrosia
First I had a small crisis. I couldn’t locate my Fannie Farmer Cookbook! This is THE book to go to for preserving foods as far as I’m concerned. Did a google search & couldn’t locate the recipe. Didn’t really want to use another one because I’ve used this recipe before & been very pleased with the results. However I did locate it online. It contains the entire cookbook! Unfortunately, it does not have a search capability. Took me quite a while to find my recipe but it’s in there.
Pot with orange peels & cold water. Next step is to gently boil them.
Took half of the orange peels & placed them in a 4 quart heavy pot. Added cold water to the pot until the orange peels were covered. Slowly brought the water & peels mixture to a boil. Gently simmered the peels until they are soft. Drained them & allowed the peels to cool enough to be able to handle them.
The orange peels have been drained. They are now cooling.
The next step was taking a knife & removing the white portion of the skin. While working on that, I put 2 cups of sugar & 1 cup of water into a medium saucepan. After the sugar dissolved, I continued cooking the syrup until it made threads when dropped in a cup of water. In the meantime, the orange peels were cut into strips. Once the syrup was the proper thickness, the orange peel strips were added to the saucepan. They cooked at a gentle boil for 5 minutes.
Orange peel that has been cleaned & cut into strips. It is now ready to be cooked in the syrup.
Orange strips simmering in syrup.
I added a cup of sugar to a bowl. Using a slotted spoon, I removed the orange peels from the pot & allowed them to drain. They were then put in the sugar & tossed until covered. Removed the orange strips from the bowl of sugar & placed them on a pie pan to dry. In the morning, I will bag them. They will then be available whenever I need candied orange peel. The remaining syrup was placed to the side to cool. Later, I will use it to sweeten a batch of tea. That will give the tea a pleasant taste of orange.
Strips of orange peel being tossed in sugar.
Now your orange peel is finished. Let it dry & then bag it.
Today I did not linger after the Chamber of Commerce meeting. I left quickly so that I could make one stop picking up supplies before meeting Don Welch at my shop, Sugary Creations. This was very exciting for me as Don has quite a reputation in our area!
Don wanted to interview me about my great-grandmother, Mama Bobo. Of course, to most of the world, she is known as Miss Mary Bobo.
My great-grandmother, Miss Mary Bobo, standing in front of The Hotel in Lynchburg, TN.
Frankly, the interview was a ton of fun! Don has done several pieces on the distillery & the boarding house so he is very familiar with the area. It’s very easy to talk to Don, which I’m sure, is a lot of the reason he is so good at his job. Not sure which I enjoyed more, picking out old pictures to share with him or showing the pictures to him. Thanks to my cousin, Sherrie Moore, it was easy to find some pictures Don would like. (Sherrie has taken on the role of family historian & has diligently been scanning & uploading old family pictures for all of us to be able to access.)
We went through several pictures of Mama Bobo & her sister, Ophelia Motlow. It was delightful looking at the pictures of the two of them when they were young.
A picture of the very young Miss Mary Bobo & Ophelia Motlow. Taken way before Ophelia married the famous Lem Motlow or Miss Mary Bobo had become famous.
My guess is that Mama (Miss Mary Bobo) was probably 15 or 16 years old at the time. This guess is based on the fact that she is still not in an ankle-length dress, the attire for a young woman of the time.
As happens, the two young ladies grew up, married & had children. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty common for such ladies to end up widows eventually as happened to these sisters. But they remained close & talked on the telephone frequently.
Ophelia Motlow on the left & her sister, Miss Mary Bobo on the right, visiting with a friend.
Mama was a delight to know & a huge inspiration. She never outgrew her love of children as can be seen in the photo below.
I look at this photo & I can hear Mama saying "gimme some sugar" right before she leaned over to get a kiss from her great great grandson.
Tags: food, Lynchburg TN, Mama Bobo, Miss Mary Bobo, Ophelia Motlow, Sugary Creations