Make your own homemade potpourri with natural apples, orange slices, and cinnamon sticks. It's a great way to bring a little beauty in and have your home smell wonderful.
A while back I showed you how to make natural potpourri from your garden flowers. Today I'm sharing an easy way to make homemade potpourri with oranges, apples, and cinnamon sticks.
Perfect for fall or as a Christmas potpourri, these scents offer a warm and cozy feel to your home.
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How to Make Homemade Potpourri
- Slice your fruit about 1/4 inch thick.
- Pat off any excess juice with paper towels
- Place them on the oven rack for 2 hours at 200 degrees, flipping occasionally. You can also use an oven safe cooling rack (as shown above) to prevent the fruit from falling through.
- After about an hour flip them over on the rack.
- Since ovens vary this may take a little longer or a little less time. Just keep an eye on the fruit and make sure it doesn't burn.
- Next, remove them from the oven and place them in a cool dry spot to completely dry out. This may take another day or two.
- Place the dried orange and apple slices in your favorite bowl with some cinnamon sticks
and enjoy.
Once when my daughter was very little, she showed me how pretty the center of an apple is, with the star or flower shape in the middle from the seeds.
This shape shows up beautifully in the dried apple slices. Here I used red delicious apples, because of their pretty dark-colored skin. I love the way the edges curl up while drying in the oven.
Homemade Potpourri Tip
The dried fruit and cinnamon sticks are fragrant. But after a while, they may lose some of their scent. You add more fragrance or freshen up the potpourri, by adding some cellulose fiber or orris root as a fixative and some essential oils or fragrance oil
Recipe Options and Substitutions
- Use other dried fruit such as fresh cranberries, lemons, limes, and grapefruit
- Try other spices such as whole nutmeg, allspice, star anise, or whole cloves.
- Add some texture with pine cones or bay leaves
Wouldn't this make a beautiful party favor or a small gift for guests? It's very similar to this simmering potpourri project. In fact, you could use these elements in a simmering saucepan of water on the stove or in a slow cooker.
Still, I think I like the way it looks just as much as the way it smells, and will keep it displayed on our coffee table.
How to Make Natural Potpourri
Equipment
- Sharp knife
- Oven
- Oven safe rack
Materials
- Red apples
- Oranges
- Cinnamon sticks
- Cellulose fiber optional
- Essential oils optional
- Fragrance oil optional
Instructions
- Thinly slice apples and oranges.
- Use paper towels to pat off any excess moisture.
- Set the sliced fruit directly on an oven rack or an oven safe rack in a single layer.
- Heat in the oven on low heat around 200 degrees for 2 - 4 hours flipping occasionally or until dry.
- Toss dried fruit slices with cinnamon stick together to make the potpourri.
- You can additionally add some fragrance oil to cellulous fiber and place it under the potpourri for added fragrance.
Zuzanna
Your post brought up the memory of my Babcia making this with crab apples. To refresh the scent she would add bits of ground cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg. Every so often she would stir it with her fingers and break up the pieces of dried fruit. She always smelled so sweet!
Patti Estep
Oh what a great story! Thanks for sharing. We have a crabapple tree. I'll have to try it.
Linda Johnston
Patti, thanks for postingt his again. I plan to make some for me and my daughters'home and office.
Patti Estep
It's a good one and fun to create. I hope your daughter loves it.
Annette Wilcox
How do you keep the apples and oranges from sticking to the cookie sheet? Mine stuck.
Patti Estep
Annette, I did not have this problem but I do have a couple of suggestions. Make sure that you get most of the just off the fruit with a paper towel first. Make sure that you flip the fruit even more often, perhaps every 20 minutes. You could also try parchment to see if it helps prevent the fruit from sticking.
Joanna
What kind of apples & oranges would you suggest to use?
Patti Estep
Joanna, I used red delicious apples because they have beautiful dark skin. The oranges I used were navel oranges mostly for their size.
Carole
Love the idea of making this for gifts, especially now through winter. After we get settled though I think I'll just make some for my office. Great idea!!!
Patti Estep
Hi Carole,
It would make great gifts. Natural and pretty and doesn't cost a lot. My kind of project. It would be great for your office.