Crystallized Ginger

In my continuing adventure into the wonders of sugar work, I tried my hand at making my own crystallized ginger the other day.  It was successful and the results delicious, but most of all it was really, really fun!  If you've never crystallized anything, you might want to try it once just for the heck of it, to see how it works and what fun it is.  It's more effort than just candying things, which I did with orange peel a few days before, but it's definitely more fun.  It's like a little science experiment. 

What happens when you candy something, like the peel, is that you cook it in a sugar syrup so that it gets infused with the sugar.  It's often coated in granulated sugar.  The difference with crystallizing something is that when you cook it in sugar syrup, you let all the water evaporate away.  This means that all the sugar, which is dissolved in the water, re-crystallizes out of the water as the water evaporates away, and the sugar crystals cling tightly to whatever is there.  It's the same idea as evaporating sea water to make salt.

I have seen crystallized things made on cooking shows, but in person it was way cooler than I expected it to be.  I don't know, maybe that's just the science geek in me, but as the last of the water bubble away and all of a sudden there was sugar everywhere, I was very giddy.  I even called my husband into the kitchen so he could see, and I kept asking him, "isn't that cool?  Isn't that cool?"  He assured me over and over that yes, it was indeed cool.

For this first dive into the magic which is crystallization I crystallized some ginger.  I sliced the ginger thin and then boiled them in plain water for about 20 minutes.  The water became a very deep golden colored and strongly flavored.  I saved it when I drained the ginger slices.  The ginger then was simmered in the sugar syrup, which is about as much sugar as ginger and maybe a fifth as much water.  Then, like I said, you just wait for the water to evaporate.  When the water is almost gone, it begins to look like it's foaming rather than boiling.  Then all of a sudden, there is no liquid, and there is sugar everywhere.  You have to turn off the heat, and quickly scoop the ginger out of the pan.  It can cool on a wire rack or even just some wax paper.  Separating the ginger while it's still warm will help keep it all from sticking together, but you have to use tongs or utensils, as hot sugar is a dangerous weapon.

I obviously had a lot of fun crystallizing ginger and now I want to crystallize everything.  I already went to the store and stocked up on almonds, lemons, and more oranges.  Everybody better watch out, everything I make is going to be coated in sugar from now on.

For B&D&J if they are reading this: I'm bringing a load of crystallized stuff to our game this weekend, so get ready for a sugar high!

Happy eating!