Dried orange slice and star anise garland
This sliced orange and star anise garland looks beautiful hanging from a fireplace, or in a window where the sunlight will shine through the orange slices. It’s really simple to make and children will love helping! It does take a little bit of time to dry the oranges but it’s well worth the effort and it smells wonderful.
What you will need:
Oranges - around 5 or 6 depending on how long you want to make your garland
Star anise
A sharp knife
A tea towel
An oven and wire rack
A yarn needle
Twine or string
A needle and brown or dark coloured thread (This is to attach the star anise to the orange slices or you can use a hot glue gun if you prefer)
What you need to do:
Preheat your oven to 100 degrees celsius.
Slice your oranges with a sharp knife, about 1/2 - 1 cm thick. Thinner slices will be more transparent but they will warp around the edges if too thin. Try and make sure your slices are evenly cut.
Lay your slices on a clean tea towel and blot to absorb excess juice. This will help reduce the drying time.
Place a sheet of baking paper onto an oven rack and then arrange the orange slices on the baking paper. Using a rack will help the slices dry out quicker as the hot air can circulate around both sides.
Put the rack in the oven for 3 hours, turning the slices over after each hour. After this, you’ll need to check on the slices every 15-30 minutes depending on how dry they are, removing any orange slices that look done to make sure that they don’t brown. They should still be a little soft and bendable rather than hard and crunchy as they’ll continue to dry out while they are displayed.
Once you are happy with your orange slices, take them out of the oven and leave to cool and dry further overnight.
I added some star anises to some of the orange slices and they look so pretty! To attach the star anises, you can either add a dab of hot glue to the centre of the orange slices and place a star anise on the glue or you can just sew a couple of stitches around the star anise and orange slice to secure in place.
Thread a long length of twine onto a yarn needle, tie a loop at one end and then thread the dried orange slices onto the twine by making a stitch through each slice. You can string them close together like I did, but they also look great spaced further apart if you prefer a more minimal look. Finish off by tying another loop at the other end of the twine.
Now you can string up your garland! It’ll look great on a mantle, on your Christmas tree, or along a hanging picture or mirror.
As long as the orange slices are completely dry, they can be stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark place and you can reuse them year after year!
Author: Denise Hope, home educating mum of two boys