How to Dry Fruit for Holiday Projects
Don’t you just love the smell of fruits and herbs during the holidays. I love to dry fruit and use it to create yummy smelling Garlands and Wreaths.
You don’t need a lot to dry fruit in an oven. Naturally, if you have a dehydrator, the process is simple, however the oven works great and your house smells wonderful.
Just determine what projects your want to use the dried fruit for this holiday and dry enough to accommodate these projects.
Medium size oranges, a baking sheet, parchment paper and a mandolin for even slicing.
Set the mandolin at the #3 setting because you don’t want the orange slices to be overly thin.
Note: You can slice oranges with a knife, however try to slice as evenly as possible so that they all dry at approximately the same rate.
Cover your baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the orange slices evenly over the sheet.
Next, set your oven to bake at 200 degrees and place the oranges slices in the over for approx. 2 hours. Enjoy the fresh smell throughout the house!
After 2 hours, your oranges will be slightly smaller as you can see here.
At this point your parchment paper may be damp or wet. If so, transfer your orange slices to a fresh sheet of parchment paper and flip the slices over to the other side.
Return to the oven and bake for another hour.
Finally, after 3 hours of baking, here is what your orange slices should look like.
You can see how I used them on the rosemary wreath at my kitchen window. In addition, the dried fruit garland includes both oranges and apples which were dried with this same technique. I simplified the garland for this years holiday.
You can see how to repurpose Old Christmas Décor here.
To see how I used the dried oranges, here is my latest dried fruit and herb garland tutorial.
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?