Monday

Homemade Fruit Leather

I remember my mom sometimes making fruit leather for us when we were kids and it's something I like to do once in awhile for our kids. It is SO yummy that it's hard not to eat it all at once!

I like to make our own because it's much healthier than the store-bought kinds and we usually use the strawberries and rhubarb we've picked and frozen from the previous summer.

When I make ours, I use my Pampered Chef stoneware in the oven. That way I don't have to line the pan with anything like plastic wrap! I spritz the stoneware with a little bit of olive oil to help the fruit leather peel off better once it's done. If you have a good food dehydrator you can also make fruit leather with that. Ours just happens to take a REALLY long time and the results aren't that great. I think I actually need a new food dehydrator because everything takes longer in it compared to other food dehydrators I've used.

 
 
For our recipe, I use 1 cup rhubarb, 1/4 c water, 2 cups of strawberries, and 1/2 cup of raw honey. (I have seen recipes that use a lot less honey but when I cut the honey in half the results were not as good as when I used the full amount). I combine 1/4 c. water and 1 c. rhubarb and then let simmer over medium high heat for 5 minutes. I then add the 2 c. of strawberries and 1/2 c. honey. Then I transfer it to my blender to puree it. (You'll be tempted to just drink the puree of course, but try to hold yourself back and actually make the fruit leather!) :) After it is pureed, I pour it onto my stoneware. Keep it to about 1/8"-1/4" thickness.

I then pop the stones in the oven at the lowest setting (preferably around 140 degrees F, but the lowest ours goes is only 170 degrees). It takes around 8 hours or so to get the right consistency. I usually do a little finger poke test after about 8 hours to see if it needs to go longer or not (depending on the thickness.)

When my leather has reached the desired consistency I remove it from the stoneware while it's still warm.
  
This is a "mini-fruit leather". I can usually do around 1-2 8x10 sizes and 1 of this little size.

After I've removed the leather I then place it in an air-tight container. I've also read you can roll them up and wrap them tightly with plastic wrap and then place in an air-tight container, but I haven't found this necessary. I'm guessing it keeps it softer longer, but honestly, it never lasts long enough around here for me to even go through the effort of wrapping it all up! :)

There are so many variations for fruit leather. Check out this site for other suggestions like banana peanut butter fruit leather. For some reason that actually sounds good to me! :)

Do you make fruit leather? How do you do it? What recipes do you use?

1 comment:

polly said...

have never tried this but i know our 3 year old grandson would love it...thanks for the info!

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