Have you ever wondered if the stuff people post on Pinterest is true? Well I have, and I test them all so that you don’t have to, ’cause ain’t nobody got time for that.  Click here to check out all of the pins I haven taken on. You might be surprised by some of the results!

No, that title is not an insult to any of my gay male friends. You know who you are, and that I love you, and that I would never call you flaming (or fruit!) to your face. Hugs.

This pin tells you how to create a candle of sorts out of citrus fruit. They use a clementine, but I do not discriminate. I ain’t no fruit-ist. My navel orange is just as good as a clementine. Plus it is bigger so less risk of me cutting myself trying to carve a tiny miniature orange. So there.

This is yet another Pinbusters where I am not questioning “if” or “how” but merely “why.” Why would you need to make flaming fruit? Will your guests actually be impressed or start staging an intervention? Can you compost burnt fruit? Will you be able to inhale vitamin C? Can pets be trusted around edible flames? I have no answers, merely questions.

Here is my target: the navel orange.

The pin – which is actually a video – shows you how to cut a line around the middle of the orange, not to deep, but just to cut the skin.

Then you have to stick your finger in and dig around, separating the orange from the peel so that you can remove the two halves cleanly. This took a bit of time but was not difficult, and then I had this:

And this:

And very sticky hands. I was not concerned with the hole in the top, because the tutorial actually tells you to cut a decorative hole in the top anyways. Ummm, ok. My mangled rind will do just fine. I was also careful to keep the long nib intact (I am refraining from calling it an orange nipple, folks, and that is the definition of class), since that is essentially the wick.

I doused the orange and its nib in extra virgin olive oil, and let is soak for a minute.

Then the fun begins – lighting it on fire!

I had to hold the flame to it for a bit to get the nib to actually light on fire (flaming, as opposing to smoldering) but it eventually burned for about 45 seconds.  I re-lit it, and it burned for a little while longer.  I think if extra virgin olive oil wasn’t so expensive, and I wasn’t so cheap frugal, and had used more of it, the flame would stay lit just fine.

Yep. That is the tiniest faceless Jack-O(range)-Lantern I’ve ever seen. Adorable. I was hoping for a citrus scent to fill my house, but no such luck.

…

and now what? Do I set these flaming fruits all around the house? Would they float in the pool or topple over and  go out? Why would I spend so much time creating these when I know stores sell perfectly good candles that actually produce a scent (and are proven to float in pools)? I think the only answer is that this guy has more time on his hands than most people and a clementine tree in his backyard that is over-producing fruit.

Flaming fruit. Get you some. Or don’t. Whatever.