Emily Laurae

0 Start by boiling a few cups of water in a saucepan. While your water is heating, prepare an ice bath (water and ice in a medium sized bowl). Note that if you are planning to candy more than two lemons, I would advise doubling the syrup recipe!
1 Once boiling, drop the lemon slices into the boiling water and allow them to boil for 2 minutes before removing them and placing them into an ice bath.
2 Meanwhile, place the granulated sugar and water in a heavy bottom stainless steel saucepan or dutch oven, mix to combine and bring to a boil. Make sure not to mix the syrup after the initial stir, otherwise the syrup could crystallize. The pot matters here, you want to make sure that your syrup will heat evenly!
3 Prepare a cooling rack with parchment paper underneath the rack to catch any syrup drippings.
4 Once the syrup has reached a temperature of 225F/107C (this should take about 20 minutes using a gas stove), place the citrus slices in the syrup.
5 Continue to heat the syrup and lemon slices until it reaches 245F/118C (this should take an additional 20 minutes using a gas stove), then turn off the heat. Remove the lemon slices one by one using a fork, food tweezers or a utensil that feels natural to you and place each slice on the prepared cooling rack.
7 For easy cleanup, add about a cup of water into your saucepan with the leftover syrup and continue to heat for a few minutes. The added water will help to dissolve any crusted sugar bits that are clinging to your pan.
6 Let the lemons cool for 2 hours before enjoying or dipping them in melted chocolate!
8 *Noticing that your lemons are still quite sticky? I've found that usually means the temperature of the syrup & lemons didn't reach the candying stage at 245F! Not to worry - you can dry them out in the oven on your lowest temp if you’re finding that yours came out too sticky - just make sure to check/flip them frequently so they don’t burn!