Anyone dehydrate orange slices?

[PureCajunSunshine]

Has anyone ever dehydrated orange slices?

 

Does it take a long time to dry?

 

I'm guessing they'll get hard as rocks?

 

 

 

[susie]

I do!

 

I slice them about a quarter of an inch thick and dry away. Sometimes I sprinkle the up side with a mixture of cinnamon/clove sugar (which drips and makes a heck of a mess).

 

The are good eaten just like that, peel and all, popped into a teapot with tea, crumbled up in recipes (bread pudding or boiled with apple or quince jelly, for instance), or ground to a fine powder and used in recipes such as smoothies or custards or used to replace a part of the flour in cakes.

 

Sometimes I soak them or poach them in a sugar srup to add to fruit salad. Or cand them for Christmas, dipping them partway into dark chocolate, or rolling them into coarse sugar.

 

I can't tell you how long the take, I just keep turning and dring them til they turn crisp. Grapefruit is also good dried, but lemons turn black.

[susie]

Bread and butter pudding.

 

Take bread of an sort...dry, stale, cubed, sliced, old...and laer it in a buttered baking dish along with crumbled-up slices of dehydrated oranges, dehydrated banana slices, and raisins (coconut and candied cherries optional). Add cinnamon if liked.

 

Pour over a mixture of egg, milk, and sugar...about a cup of milk to each egg, white or brown sugar to taste. Let this sit for an hour or two, or even overnight, and then top up with more agg and milk mixture as needed to almost get to the top of the mix. Sprinkle with sugar and bake at about 350°F until browned and puffy.

 

Good served hot, cold, or warm. Top with jam, custard, cream, or ice cream, if you like.

[PureCajunSunshine]

Tankee, tankee!!

 

I have googled this topic until I am all googled out...I came up with almost nothing useful for a foodie.

 

Mostly what I came across was how to dry orange slices to make holiday decor...How wasteful is THAT!?

[susie]

I have seen Christmas decorations made with orange slices and cinnamon sticks, bound with ribbon....also ones with the ends of the oranges cut into stars and pressed into fishing line and used to hang down the window like strings of beads.

 

I suppose that you could alwas eat those after the holidays.

 

PS I also dry the orange ends, and grind them up with the 'less pretty' slices.

[Violet]

Each time I dry oranges or lemons they turn really awful brown after a while. I don't dry them any more due to that. I freeze citrus peels instead for flavor in things. You can grate the zest and freeze. Works "grate" , ha ha !

 

[PureCajunSunshine]

Originally Posted By: susie

Sometimes I sprinkle the up side with a mixture of cinnamon/clove sugar (which drips and makes a heck of a mess).

I think I can solve that problem...

After much fiddling around with lots of messes with dehydrating apples and bananas dusted with sugar...

Eureka! Problem with that deliciousfinemess was solved!

Instead of using regular granulated table sugar, I dusted apple slices (and banana, too) with a "superfine" grade of sugar along with cinnamon powder before dehydrating them.

The superfine grade is sort of like a cross between regular table sugar grade and powdered sugar. I got mine in a 1 lb box (C&H brand) for about a buck. Works like a charm! The apple slices dried COMPLETELY through and the light dusting of superfine sugar crystals did not melt all over creation. Because it dried so perfectly, it should be excellent for storage!

The trick is not to supercoat the goods with the sugar.

[Violet]

I would think you could just use regular sugar and put in the blender for a bit and make it superfine. Would be cheaper. I know you are supposed to be able to blend it fine enough for powdered sugar, but I have not tried it.

 

[susie]

I think that you could blend sugar to get it superfine. I'm sure that I overdo the sugar...it is so messy, but so good.

 

My lemons always turn black, but the oranges usually don't.

[Crazy4Canning]

I've put splenda in the blender to get 'powdered sugar'.

 

It is WAY more sticky than p.sugar but if you're looking to cut calories, it can be done.

 

Just remember if you're coating something like a tea cookie or applet in the splenda p.sugar, it will NOT look or FEEL the same as the regular p.sugar - it will turn almost immediately wet. My husband didn't care - he loved it anyway.

[susie]

Real powdered sugar seems to be a mmixture of ground sugar and cornstarch.