Wednesday, December 4, 2024

The Family Table Ep. 2 - Orange Citrus Fruit Powders

In my household I'm all about thrifting, saving, stretching and getting as many uses as I can with everything I have, and that's where this simple little recipe comes from. 

I really hope you find it useful.  

At Christmas time I like to include in my dessert menu and gift baskets, a batch of homemade orange fudge. It's very similar to the flavor of the popular Terry's Chocolate Orange, but even better! 

The way I pull that off, is with fresh, organic orange peels I've dried & powdered (intead of artificial orange extract you can purchase at the grocery store). 

The deep citrus orange flavor profile with real orange compared to artificial orange extract is like night and day. 

The added bonus is, you can use this same orange powder in a wide variety of dishes and recipes from breakfast muffins, cookies, candies, pastries and various stir fry dishes. There are countless different ways to use citrus orange peel powder.

Take 2, medium sized, organic Navel oranges & wash with cold water, thoroughly.  Peel oranges with as little of the white pith as possible.  Using a sharp knife or vegetable peeler, whatever works best.  Once the peels are removed, finely dice into pieces and place onto a dehydrator tray. (If you don't have a dehydrator - then just follow these directions for simple oven drying). 

In the dehydrator, run it at 135 degrees for 16 hours.  This is the maximum time suggested to make sure your peels are perfectly dry for powdering.  Once dried, transfer into the Magic Bullet small cup (or whatever blender you have), and blitz until they're the texture you like. 

I like mine a little more coarse but you can blitz them until they're a consistent, uniform powder.  You can use whatever appliance you have, whether it's a blender, coffee bean or spice grinder, or food processor as they all basically do the same thing. 


The texture I'm usually going for is that of a fine crumbly topping, but this is entirely preferential. You can blitz until it's a fine powder or you can leave even chunkier bits. The chunkier you leave it, the more bold orange flavor is present in whatever you're using it in. 

Generally, 2 oranges will produce 2 tablespoons of orange peel powder which is the perfect amount for add-ins to cookies, cakes, candies, muffins, and numerous other recipes.  It's a great solution to over-ripe oranges, nectarines, tangerines, clementines and most any other orange citrus. Instead of throwing it out, simply scrub up those peels and find new life in aging citrus fruits you never would have thought of. 

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel welcome to leave those below.  

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