How to make Christmas Pomanders

Pomanders are easy to make and will add a wonderful scent to your home. You can use most any fruit, although oranges are the most common. Read on to learn how to make your own Pomanders and hang them or pile them into a bowl.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• apples
• oranges
• lemons
• limes
• crab apples
• kumquats
• fruit for base whole cloves
• powdered/ground spices such as: o cloves o cinnamon o ginger o nutmeg o powdered/ground orris root

1. Mix the spices and orris root together. This mixture will help your pomander dry and it will smell even better. It will also helps keep the fruit going bad. All you have to do it mix one part orris root to four parts spice mixture.

2. 
   Poke with fork

   Find clean, firm, ripe fruit that doesn't have any marks on it, so that it will look nice. Use a skewer or a fork and start poking holes into the fruit.

3. 
   Completely covered fruit

   Push the stem of the clove into the fruit. Place the cloves close together on the fruit, this will make the fruit last longer, although spacing them apart and even making a nice pattern looks great, too.

4. When the orange or apple is completely covered with cloves, roll it in the spice and orris root mixture.

5. Leave the fruit in the spices and put it all a cool, dark place, then every day you will need to turn the fruit until it is dried.

6. 

   When the pomanders are dry, tie a bright ribbon around them and hang them from a chandelier or tie several together and hang from you door or even on your tree. Or just stack them all in a large bowl and let the fragrance fill the room.

Tips & Warnings

• The traditional pomander that is covered completely can be stored for years.

[jillmaria]

on 9/19/2009 Instructive article and the pictures are fantastic, thanks and 5 stars!!

[bmi57]

on 12/1/2007 I have always wondered how to do this and actually forgot about it until your article. Thank you.