So many recipes made around the Christmas holidays call for crystallized ginger, and it’s so gosh darn expensive to buy. I decided to make some from scratch – I was able to make 2.5 cups of crystallized ginger for half the cost of a 2 oz bottle bought at the store!
I started with Bruce Moffitt’s recipe, but made some minor changes. They’re listed below:
Crystallized Ginger
a 9 to 10 oz piece of fresh ginger (try to find a piece that’s pretty straight, and without a bunch of small knobs)
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp water
Peel the ginger using your favorite method (the easiest is with a spoon), and cut out any discolored spots, as well as the dried up ends. Cut the ginger up into 1/8″ dice, then combine in a bowl with the sugar. Stir it up really well.
Put the water into a heavy bottomed saucepan (something non-stick would probably work well, if you’ve got it, but the bottom has to be heavy). Add in the sugar and ginger and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar’s melted and it’s formed a syrup.
Reduce the heat to as low as it will go, Cook for about half an hour. If the mixture’s foaming, don’t worry – mine did that too. After that half hour, don’t stray too far from the stove. Keep an eye on it, still stirring occasionally, watching for signs of crystallization. You’ll see it start around the edges of the pot. Mine started to turn after about a total of 50 minutes of cooking time. When you can move the crystals into the middle of the pan and there’s hardly any syrup left at the bottom of the pot, you’re done! Remove it from the heat immediately, pour it onto a silpat or some other surface that you’ll be able to get cooled sugar off of easily and let cool.
When it’s cooled down, put it into an air tight container and store in a cool, dark (and dry) place.
I ended up with about half ginger pieces, ginger-flavored sugar crystal chunks. And oh, is it good! Matt says the sugar tastes just like ginger Altoids, but a tiny bit sweeter.
Leave a Comment