Watermelon Rind Candy
Sugar-cooked melon rind, dried at home into chewy squares that ride in a pocket for weeks.
- calories
- 210
- weight
- 2 oz
- cal / oz
- 105
- protein
- 1 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 10 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Snack
- Dessert
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Day hike
- Bikepacking
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Watermelon rind, white layer only | 2 lb | green skin peeled off, pink flesh trimmed away |
|---|---|---|
| Granulated sugar | 2 lb | equal weight to the trimmed rind |
| Water | 2 cups | kitchen only, nothing carried |
| Lemon juice | 2 tbsp | keeps the syrup from crystallizing |
Method
- At home: peel the green skin and cut off all pink flesh. You want the pale layer. Cut it into 3/4-inch cubes.
- Simmer the cubes in plain water for 10 minutes until a fork goes through with slight resistance. Drain.
- Dissolve the sugar in 2 cups of water, add the lemon juice, and bring it to a boil. Add the rind.
- Cook at a low boil, stirring now and then, until the cubes turn translucent and the syrup thickens to a heavy drip. Roughly 45 minutes. Do not let it caramelize.
- Lift the cubes out, spread them on a rack, and dry them at 135°F in a dehydrator or the oven's lowest setting until tacky but not wet. Six to ten hours.
- Toss the dried pieces in a spoonful of sugar so they stop sticking to each other, then bag them.
- On trail: open the bag, eat.
This starts as a Romanian preserve — watermelon rind cooked in syrup and jarred — which is the wrong format for a pack. Wet preserves are heavy, and glass is worse. So the syrup step stays and the jar goes: after the rind turns translucent, the pieces come out and get dried down into candy. What is left is sugar and fiber with almost no water weight.
The rind works because it holds its shape. Pectin and cell wall in that pale layer survive an hour of boiling, so the cubes end up chewy instead of collapsing into jam. Equal weight sugar to rind is not a suggestion; below that the pieces stay damp and go moldy in the bag. The lemon juice inverts some of the sugar and keeps the syrup from grainy crystallization, which would leave you with sandy candy.
Packing
Store in a jar at home and portion into small zip bags before a trip. Two ounces is a real snack. Keep them out of direct sun in the pack lid or they soften and clump.
Variations
- A cinnamon stick or a few cloves in the syrup pot gives them a mulled edge.
- Rolling the dried cubes in citric acid instead of sugar makes them sour and cuts the sweetness.
- Chop them fine and stir them into oatmeal or couscous for a fruit component that does not need rehydrating.
https://savoriurbane.com/dulceata-de-miez-de-pepene-verde-pepene-rosu-lubenita-sau-harbuz