Mandarin Candles

Ingredients

Mandarins – a dryer variety with a looser skin work best – we use imperials
Olive oil
Matches or a lighter

Summary

Making candles out of the skins of mandarins is our new winter solstice tradition. They’re so easy to make and so joyful to watch burn during the shortest day of the year. Once you’ve finished using them as candles, you can leave them somewhere warm and dry to dehydrate – then they’re terrific as fire lighters. It’s a waste-free-fruit!

Mandarin Candles

Carefully score the skin of the mandarin around the middle.

Starting with the top (stem end), use your fingers to gently peel the skin away from the side of the fruit, keeping the shape intact.  Next, carefully twist the skin and pull away from the fruit, this will allow the inner stem to remain intact and that is what you use for the wick!

Repeat this process for the other half of the skin. Once it has come away from the fruit, use a small sharp knife to cut a shape in the top, to act as a chimney – we like doing stars.

Pour a little pool of oil in the bottom of the skin, pluz a light drizzle over the wick (don’t saturate it) – this will act as your fuel.

Lighting your candle might take a few goes, have patience, once it’s caught it will glow for as long as you feed it oil.

Please remember to never leave candles unattended. Happy winter solstice 🍊 ✨

P.s There’s a how-to video here!