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How To Make A Clove Apple
This is an article I found in a copy of the vintage magazine The WorkBasket, 1959. It describes how to make a decorative clove apple.
Did You Ever Make A Clove Apple?
E. B. Dykes Beachy
If you were fortunate enough to have an old fashioned grandmother or great-grandmother, you may remember the time you were permitted to wander alone through her home. When you arrived at the linen or clothes closet, the chances are you found in the spice scented darkness, a fragrant, rough surfaced, mystifying object.
“Why, that’s a clove apple,” your grandmother told you. Then she explained to you that winter preparations always included the making of a clove apple because the clove scented sachets were used as a moth repellent.
Stronger and more modern methods are used today but clove apples have remained popular. They are found in some gift shops but the price is so high it is cheaper and more satisfying to make your own.
You need a large, round, unblemished, hard, winter apple, a bit of ribbon, a box of whole cloves, ground cinnamon and powered orris root. Tie the ribbon around the apple (as you would in wrapping a package) with the bow on top. Remove the ribbon. Put transparent tape (the width of the ribbon) around the fruit.
Begin at the blossom end of the apple. Slowly and carefully insert whole cloves one by one in the fruit as close and tight as possible. Do not hold the apple tightly or insert the cloves in a straight line or the skin will burst. Leave the space for the ribbon clear.
When the apple is covered with cloves, roll it in a mixture of equal parts of ground cinnamon and orris root, with a pinch of ground cloves, then wrap it in tissue paper. Put the clove apple away for ten days where the air can dry it out, but do not put it in a closed space. The apple will shrink and become very dry and light but will not lose its aroma. The aroma will last for months and the apples have been known to last for years–long after the clove scent is gone.
In olden days, clove apples were placed in bags of net and hung in closets. Today, the ribbon is tied around the apple and a loop left on top so it may be hung in a linen or clothes closet or any place you choose in your home.
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I found it’s easier to do this when the apple is a little softer (and wrinkly); otherwise, you’re just going to end up hurting your fingers or breaking the cloves on the hard apple. It’s also really easy to do with oranges as well.
I was unable to find orris root powder so I used only cinnamon, and the apple turned out fine. To speed up the drying process I put five finished clove apples covered in cinnamon in a food dehydrator. They dry in two to three days depending on the size of the apple.