How to Make Chocolate Dipped Mandarin Slices

California’s unusually dry winter this year has extended the Mandarin orange crops from the Sierra Foothills. First planted in the 1880s by Welsh settlers, other orchard crops include pears, plums, peaches, and oranges.

The Owari Satsuma variety of Mandarins is a favorite because they are seedless and are also known as “the zipper fruit” because they are so easy to peel. They are high in Vitamin C. The Mandarin orange is also known for its natural potassium content—only second to the banana.

Placer County, only minutes away from Sacramento, has over 30 Mandarin growers in the towns of Auburn, Loomis, Lincoln, Newcastle, and Penryn. To celebrate this popular citrus fruit, the Mountain Mandarin Festival, a three-day celebration in November, attracts about 30,000 visitors each year. Mandarins are available in late November through January, and the festival is only the beginning of the harvest.

Fresh Mandarins from the Sierra Foothills can be purchased from local citrus orchards, vendors and grocery stores. It is not unusual to find people toting 5-pound bags of the tree ripened fruit. Boxed Mandarins are also sold throughout the country and given as gifts.

For an inexpensive dessert, a special dish or an easy potluck dish, Chocolate Dipped Mandarins is inexpensive and easy to make if you can resist the temptation to eat the mandarins—plain or dipped in chocolate.

This sweet treat is family friendly and very easy to make. As a dish, it is easy to transport and does not need refrigeration if you use the type of chocolate meant to give dipped fruit a hard shell.

Chocolate Dipped Mandarins

Ingredients

1 – 8 oz. container, microwaveable, hard chocolate shell like Dolci frutta, found in the supermarket produce section

Approximately 12 mandarin oranges, peeled and divided into sections

You will also need:

Wax or freezer paper

Serving platter

Directions

1. Melt chocolate according to the package. If you are making less, measure a handful of chocolate into a dish and heat in microwave for about 45 seconds or until chocolate melts and can be stirred.

2. Dip Mandarin into the melted chocolate, covering only half of each section. Place on wax or freezer paper. The chocolate will harden in minutes.

3. Finish dipping the remaining Mandarin slices.

4. Once the chocolate has hardened, the Mandarin slices are ready to serve.

5. Place Mandarins on serving tray. Serve.

Variations:

Dolci frutta comes in a creamy white shell.

For a light brown shell coating for the Mandarin sections, combine chocolate and creamy white Dolci frutta, melt in microwave, then use as a dip for the fruit.