Another pressure cooker first that will save you loads of time (10 min pressure cooking vs. 60-90 simmering) and preserve lemon peels to use as home-made candy or to use in your recipes.

The first time I tasted home-made candied lemon peels I was working for the City of San Francisco and a co-worker begged me to bring her the Mayer Lemons from the wine-barrel planted tree I inherited from my mother. A few days later Monica presented me with a little jar filled with candied lemon peels.

“You can use them in your desserts,” she said “…or you can just eat them straight.” Huh? Wha? I tasted one. Then two, then I really couldn’t stop and I told her I had to have more of this tarty sweet homemade candy. She explained that it was a lengthy process and, besides, I had to wait until I could give her more lemons.

Fast-forward 15 years when I started experimenting with jams and marmalades in the pressure cooker. I wondered if the candied citrus-peel making process could be accelerated with pressure, too. It took a bit of experimenting but I finally figured it out.

I make this recipe with regular lemons and they are pretty amazing – unfortunately, no Mayer Lemon trees anywhere to be found in Italy. My mother’s little tree is still in San Francisco, in the capable hands of our family friends Sandra and Richard on their Cole Valley deck.

Technique Details

Nothing goes to waste here. We juice the lemons first and I save the juice in the freezer. You can use ice cube trays (in Italy you can buy ice “cube” baggies) to use for recipes. If the iced lemon juice lasts me until summer I use them to lemony-up a glass of water. Juicing the lemons first makes the task of removing the pulp much simpler and it leaves the peel completely intact.

This recipe has two phases the first is to soften the peels and take the bitter flavor out of the remaining pith. If you’d rather not have pith it’s pretty easy to scrape off the peels after this first boil. If you’re not one to fuddy-duddy, like me, then don’t worry. The peels end-up tasting very similar whether the pith is there or not.

The second phase is the actual candy-ing step and it only needs 10 minutes at pressure (vs. 60+ minutes of conventional simmering). Here, the pressure cooker is brought to pressure with primarily sugar. So don’t be alarmed if the recipe only calls for 1 cup (250 ml) of water the addition of the sugar . Since sugar is technically a liquid the cooker is actually going to build pressure with 3 cups (750ml) of liquid – this should cover the minimum requirement of all 2-8L pressure cookers.

To ensure the peels are not bitter…

Do not leave any pulp on the peels

Do not use less water than indicated in either phase

Do not re-use the water from the first pressure cook phase in the second phase

Follow the instructions and discard the water from the first phase, strain and rinse the peels, and rinse the cooker base

Do not replace the water in any step with the freshly-squeezed juice

Don’t be concerned about the peels being soft and pliable during the cooking process – they will firm-up nicely and their final flavor will be set after the last drying step.

If you decide to double or triple the recipe make sure that the lemon peels, sugar and water do not bring your pressure cooker over the 1/2 full line. For your safety, DO NOT release pressure quickly through the valve in this last step. The liquified sugar is molten, hot and sticky. Be sure to follow my directions to the letter and use Natural Release as stated in the recipe.

Pressure Cooker Accessories Pr. Cook Time Pr. Level Open 3 L none 3 & 10 min. High(2) Slow Normal & Natural