Remember our Halloween punch we made last week with carved oranges? We turned them into the sweetest little Halloween candles! Here’s how…
Halloween Candles Made from Dried Oranges
After we finished shooting the Halloween punch (ps did you see the fun video we made for instagram?), I didn’t want to just toss out our cute carved oranges. I was reminded of the dried orange garland we made a couple Christmases ago and thought maybe we could try drying out the oranges as well. Also, the garland is STILL on our fireplace. We love it!
The process was pretty straight forward, and you don’t need any special dehydrating equipment. First off, it’s best to use full sized or medium sized oranges because they’ll shrink considerably when you dry them out and you want to be sure you can fit a small tealight candle inside. When you carve the oranges, be sure to scoop out as much of the insides as you can so it’s a relatively clean in there. With a real pumpkins, this would be difficult, but remember oranges have a nice soft rind so we just dug a bit into the rind to be sure we got out as much as possible for a clean interior. We also found it easier to carve the face before scooping out the insides. Try to carve them so they sit securely on the their bottom.
To dry them out we put them in a 200 degree oven for several hours, I think ours took about 5-6 hours. Give it some time and check them frequently as they go. You want the rind to be hard, but not crumbling. The color will become a dark orange color and will make the house smell amazing.
When they’re all dried out and cooled you can place a tealight inside for a spooky mini jack o’lantern!