Winter is the time of the year when I like to spend more time in the kitchen. The weather is good, there is a sense of festivity all around. I love to try out new things. Making candied ginger was on my wish list for a long time. I don't know why I didn't try it all these years. I looked up a lot of recipes but most of them have used lot of sugar which somehow didn't appeal to me. I have used sugar equal in weight to peeled ginger and it worked beautifully for me. Even the powdered sugar for rolling ginger slices, use half cup first, take more if needed. As far as possible use tender ginger rhizomes. They are easy to slice and cook also faster.
Ingredients Ginger 250 gms Sugar 225 gms Water 3 - 4cups Powdered sugar 1/2 cup Method
Wash and peel ginger.
Now weigh it again. Mine was 225 gms.
Slice it into 1/4" slices. I used a mandolin, which made my task very easy.
Take 3-4 cups of water in a large pot.
Tip in sliced ginger.
Boil the ginger slices till they are tender. Takes about 25-30 minutes.
Place a colander over another pan.
Pour the contents into the colander. Now take a cup of water in which ginger was boiled.
Add sugar and ginger slices and put it to boil.
Boil on low till the syrup thickens and the ginger slices are nicely coated with sugar syrup.
Keep a cooling rack over a tray.
Carefully pour the ginger over this rack.
Now comes the painful part.
Separate all the slices and lay them in a single layer over the cooling rack.
Leave it for a few hours. I left it over night.
Take powder sugar in a tray and roll ginger pieces in it, a few at a time.
Let these ginger pieces dry on parchment paper. Once completely dry store them in an air tight container.
Chop them and soak them with other fruits for plum cake, or use them in other cakes.
Dry the sugar syrup also on parchment paper.
Use it to make ginger tea or cookies.