Monday, August 15, 2011

Homemade Orange Bursts

Homemade Orange Bursts!!

Last week I ordered a Food Dehydrator Kit from Amazon so I can make jerky, kale chips, and those expensive orange bursts  snacks I get at the California Avenue Farmer's Market every weekend.  The kit came with five trays, a jerky gun, two Clean-A-Screens, and some other stuff.  The first thing I tried to make were those delicious dried oranges.  In my opinion, these taste way better than the ones I was buying from Old Creek Ranch!
I bought a variety of oranges from the farmer's market and experimented with them over the weekend.  Sour oranges worked best. 

Tools:

Ingredients:
  • 2.5lb Sour Oranges (this will take up about 2 trays)


Instructions:
  1. Wash and peel oranges.  Try to keep as much of the fiber on as possible, especially the chunk in the middle.
    2. Oranges.
  2. Cut the oranges into 1/4" thick slices.
  3. For every tray in the dehydrator, use a Clean-a-Screen.  This will make removing the orange slices and cleaning the trays a 100x easier!  Place the slices in the tray.

    3. Sliced oranges in dehydrator.
  4. Plug the dehydrator in and leave it on for 7-12 hours, until desired texture.  If left in for less time, slices still have a very very small amount of juice, and are chewy and less sweet.  If left in for 12 hours, slices are darker in color, more sweet and a lot more chewy.  For the first 3 hours, set the temperature to 160F, then turn it down to 145F.  Reorder the trays halfway.

    4. 7-hour slices on the left vs. 12-hour slices on the right.
  5. Enjoy!

    4. Yummy!