Have you ever tried chocolate covered orange? If you have, I am sure I don’t need to explain further. But if you have not, you’ve got to try these!
These chocolate covered oranges make such delightful treats that are not only super delicious, but healthy too! After all, it only takes 2 ingredients to make these and that is the orange and dark chocolate. Easy right?
I made these for the first time over the last weekend. I had quite a number of mandarin oranges at home and wanted to fix a quick treat. So the oranges came in really handy.
Mandarin oranges are available in abundance during Chinese New Year. Though I don’t directly celebrate the festival, I always get lots of mandarin oranges from friends and neighbors who celebrate.
And since the New Year was just 2 weeks ago, I still had plenty of these oranges at home. It was a perfect opportunity for me to try out these chocolate covered oranges.
You can make the chocolate covered orange with other types oranges too, though the ones that are easily separated by segments such as these Mandarin oranges are generally easier to work with.
Table of contents
How to Choose the Best Chocolate for Chocolate Covered Fruits
Now, making these treats is not rocket science. After all, how difficult can it be to dip something in chocolate?
But here’s the thing. Working with chocolate is not always easy, especially if you live in a hot climate country like Malaysia. The last couple of weeks has been extremely hot here, with day time temperature reaching up to 35 degrees Celsius. In this sort of temperature, working with chocolate is almost impossible unless the room is air-conditioned. Even then, once the chocolate is brought out to room temperature, it becomes totally helpless to the heat.
And so, instead of using normal chocolate, I used compound chocolate. It is so much more stable with heat and was therefore the only one I could use.
If heat is not a problem for you, then, by all means, choose the best quality chocolate you can get because it really makes a difference to these treats.
And I specifically chose dark chocolate over white and milk options as it works best for these chocolate covered oranges, at least for me.
Tips for Best Chocolate Covered Orange
Here are a couple of noteworthy points in making these chocolate covered oranges
Type of oranges
- I chose Mandarin oranges over other oranges because Mandarin oranges are so much easier to peel the skin by hand.
- It is also so much easier to separate the segments without the walls leaking, unlike normal oranges where the skin is not so easily peel-able, and it is also hard to separate the segments inside without breaking the walls that surround the juice pulps inside.
Seedless fruits are the best
- Making sure the oranges are seedless is another important point. It’s so much nicer to be able to pop one whole orange segments into the mouth and chew without having to worry about chewing into orange seeds.
Peeling and preparing the oranges for dipping
- In peeling the oranges and separating the segments, take extra care not to break the walls that hold the juice pulps.
- Even the slightest hole can result in the juice of the orange to leak. And dipping these segments not only becomes harder as the juice makes them slippery and hard to hold when dipping into chocolate, it is also a messy affair.
- Also, when peeling the oranges, remove every bit of the white threads of the skin on the segments. This is so that the oranges look clean and neat.
Use wire racks and parchment paper
- Immediately after dipping, place the oranges on a wire rack. This will allow excess chocolate to drip down and not create a pool of chocolate around the chocolate-dipped slices.
- Once the excess chocolate has mostly dripped off, the chocolate covered orange can be transferred onto parchment paper. Parchment paper peels off easily from chocolate and therefore, is most convenient to use.
- Once the chocolate has set, peel the paper off and arrange in a serving tray without a mess.
Chilling the chocolate covered oranges
- Place freshly dipped orange slices in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. The short period of refrigerating helps the chocolate set. Do not leave the fruits too long in the refrigerator.
- This will result in condensation on the fruits and chocolate once removed from the fridge. If you are using compound chocolate, the ‘sweat’ will not cause the chocolate to melt.
- But it is definitely not appetizing to see speckles of water all over the chocolate and the oranges.
Best chocolate to use in hot and humid climates
- If you live and a hot and humid country like me, compound chocolate would work better than normal chocolate.
- It is so much more stable and does not melt off in a hot climate.
Best method for easy dipping of the fruits
- Fill the melted chocolate into a narrow and deep drinking glass-like container (heatproof). This makes it easier to dip the oranges slices as compared to a wide bowl.
- If you don’t have any suitable deep container, use a spoon to pour the chocolate over each slice while holding them with the other hand.
- Shake excess off and place the slices on a wire rack.
Like this recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out
- Orange Layer Cake with Orange Buttercream and Candied Peels
- How to Pipe Different Colored Icing without Changing Piping Tips
- Chocolate Icing Recipe
- Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Cake - A Decorating Tutorial
- Light Fruit Cake Recipe
- Orange Peel Candy - How to Make Candied Peels
- Chocolate Heart Cookies for Valentine's Day
- Orange Popsicles - Refreshing Homemade Treats
- Candied Lemon Peel - How to Make
Recipe (Printable)
Here is the full printable recipe for my chocolate covered oranges:
Chocolate Covered Orange
Instructions
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt it over a pan of hot water (or heat up in a microwave, checking on the consistency at regular intervals). Once the chocolate has melted, remove from hot water and allow it to cool slightly.
- Separately, peel the oranges and break them up into segments. Clean the segments of any white orange peel threads. Place in a clean plate.
- While waiting for the chocolate to cool slightly, prepare parchment paper and baking rack. Cut parchment paper into small squares (enough to fit one orange segment each) and place the cooling rack over a large plate. The plate is to catch excess chocolate that drips from the chocolate covered oranges placed on the wire racked after dipping.
- Once the chocolate has cooled slightly, hold the orange segment at one end and dip into chocolate, just enough to cover the orange halfway up. Lift the orange out, hold for a few seconds for excess chocolate to drip off, and carefully place the chocolate covered orange on a cooling rack. Repeat the process until all the oranges have been dipped.
- Next, lift the chocolate covered oranges and place them on the parchment paper prepared earlier. Arrange on a wide plate and place them in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, until set.
- Remove from the fridge and peel off the parchment paper. Arrange the chocolate covered oranges in a serving plate to serve.
Nutrition
Wasn’t that easy? Try these chocolate covered oranges and let me know how you like them 🙂
Enjoy!
Margaret
I want to give this treat to my Christmas company so I tried it out first. BIG MISTAKE! I ate the entire plateful (2 oranges) myself in under an hour. They are so refreshing and so simple to make. I used wax paper as I didn't have any parchment on hand and it worked just fine. Used dark chocolate as suggested and melted it in a small double boiler. I'm going to put each orange segment in it's own little candy cup to serve to guests.
Priya Maha
I am so glad you like them, Margaret 🙂