Winter months are not only the season of Christmas and New Year but also a season of chocolate and other sweet treats. It is during these months the peak of maturation – yes – citrusses.

Personally I see very often in recipes that you simply need to use some citrus with it’s – of course- special treatment. Besides the aforementioned recipes with fresh citrus fruits, we would like today bring you some photo – guide application for oranges, lemons, grapefruit, tangerines, Sweetie’s and other fruits.

1. How do you cut “à la vif”, or without membranes :

• Cut the top and bottom of the fruit so that the fruit can stand without help – see photo. This helps us in the further “liberation” of the fruit from it’s protective packaging. I definitely don’t remind that the fruit has to be for the treatment thoroughly washed and dried.

• Put the fruit on the side and cut the peel of with a sharp knife, so you only see flesh without membrane – see the picture. Try not to cut deep into the flesh so you get lovely wedges .

• Then cut membranes of the wedges. Start cutting off the membrane from both sides of the wedges so you end up only with parts without membranes.

• Use a sharp knife and be careful to cut correctly till the middle of the fruit, so you will not cut yourself and the other segments are not get damaged.

• If you are careful enough, drop the wedges apart very easily.

• If done correctly, the segments are fixed and fully and resemble small half months.

• Removing membranes makes the fruit tasty, sweet and removes the bitter aftertaste. The wedges are also shiny and more attractive than with membranes. So you can use the parts in a cream or as decoration. But you can also caramelize them and serve for example as an attachment at baked quail →gebruiken.

• If you want to use the wedges to decorate your tart → don’t forget to abricot the fruit. Jelly not only helps the fruit stay shiny and attractive but also protects it from drying out. So your cake will be even more attractive.

2. What more you may make of pulp :

• Apart of perfectly cut wedges, you can also get rid of the citrus membrane by simply peeling them. In this case, it is the perfect form of wedges absolutely “optional”.

• Such peeled flesh you can process in for example Grapefruit truffels →

• Or as fantastic fresh agent for chocolate creams in the form of Grapefruit jam. →

3. Citrus peel – another ingredient for desserts :

• Peel of citrus fruits – assuming that she was not chemically treated – is a perfect ingredient in the preparation of delicacies. All you have to do is caramelize it befor use. In this case, it is good to cut the fruit in cross before peeling off. This way you get great peel wedges, and so you can decide if you will continue with the traditional “orangettes” or whether you will give it a special form for decoration of mini pastries.

4. Side effect :

• Juicy flesh and peel are not the only treats that citrussen offer us. In their processing / caramelizing, we get one more delicious ingredient – citrus syrup. Do not throw him certainly away ! Mix the syrup with some ice cubes, grapefruit juice and vodka or gin and you have a fantastic and refreshing cocktail for your party. Or use it as jelly agent for the fruits.