Monday, December 15, 2008

Apple & Orange Pomanders


The other day the kids and I spent an hour or so working on apple and orange pomanders.

I had a huge quantity of whole cloves purchased from a bulk food store some time ago, and decided we needed to use them up - hence the pomanders.

You can use either an orange or an apple for your pomander - we used both. I had a problem with my cloves breaking every time I poked them in the apple - the kids didn't seem to have that happening as much. It could be that my cloves were older (I had a few containers) and so they were more dry and easily crumbled.

This pomander was decorated by my daughter - she placed tape around the orange to make her pattern.

After making our designs with the cloves - I put some ground spices in a bag - popped the fruit inside and gave it a good shake to cover the fruit.

They smell WONDERFUL! I have always loved the smell of cloves...

Here is the one that my son decorated...he claimed he didn't have the patience to do it - but he persevered.

Mine was the lone apple and I decided to completely cover it.

Our pomanders are in the process of drying out - once they are dried, we can tie some ribbon around them and hang them up.

4 comments:

CanadianGrandma said...

How wonderful! I have never made pomanders...I'm going to give it a try!

ames said...

Pomanders! I used to love making them as a kid, they smelled so wonderful!

We used to pre-poke the fruit with a toothpick to make it easier to get the clove in without breaking. It also made it easier to get them in a straight line too.

Dianna said...

I've always wanted to make one of those. Do they last indefinitely?

Anonymous said...

Yum, pomanders; we just unwrapped ours last night as we decorated the tree. They do last indefinitely! We have two big zip loc bags full and have given many away over the years, too. Pomanders mean the holidays for my kids, especially the oldest daughter. We use shish-kebab skewers to poke the fruit first, and usually don't use apples as they seem more likely to rot before the spices can really preserve them.