For my friend’s yearly trip to Whistler, we decided to have a cooking contest where each of the teams was given a secret ingredient. I got to help choose the ingredients. To my surprise, the ingredient that was assigned to my team was one that I had no idea what to do with. It was Celery Root or Celeriac.

Celery root is a weird knobby root vegetable that has a earthy fresh taste. It has a milder taste than celery and many people use it as a potato substitute. One challenge for me was to create a dessert using this. I racked my brain for days and thought of how I can make a celery tasting root be sweet. Then it dawned on me!! It had recently been Chinese New Year and the asian supermarkets were full of sweets. The sweets were created from different things like beans, lotus roots, winter melon and carrots. You name it and someone probably tried making it. I wanted to see if celery root could be turned into a candy so this was my experiment.

I began by slicing up the celery root into really thin slices. For this I used a grater but a mandolin would have been a lot easier.

Place the slices into a pot with 1 cup water and 1 cup white sugar. You then leave it to boil for about 20 minutes. During that time the celery root will soften and sweeten.

After 20 minutes, take the celery root out of the water and place it on a line baking sheet. I used parchment paper.

Bake the celery root in a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until dry.

Let the celery root cool before enjoying them as a snack. You can also use them to decorate a cake. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the taste of these.

Ingredients

• Sliced celery root
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar

If you liked this recipe, check out the other on the blog.