Fruit Leather

I seriously found a new favorite thing to do with overripe fruit! Well, a new favorite thing to do when you have a LOT of overripe fruit.

I love this stuff for a quick fruit serving and energy boost -

so why not make my own?

It was really simple too, though it took a long time to dehydrate the fruit.

The first thing I did was make a big pot of applesauce up (based on my applesauce recipe I posted  last week) and let it boil down a LITTLE bit, but not turn into apple butter.

Then I added a little more than half a quart of frozen cherries we still had in the freezer, after thawing them and chopping them up in the food processor.  It was more for color than anything. Definitely could have done this JUST with apples though.

I had a bit of honey in the house, and I thought I would try to use it in there, but I ran out and still wanted more sugar.  I put in 1/2 a cup more of plain cane sugar, and when I had finished making the leather, I thought it could have used even more.  I used a LOT of apples though.  Just make sure you’re happy with the amount of sugar before you start drying.

After the apple/cherry sauce was made I lined two cookie sheets with parchment paper and greased it with some of my homemade butter.  Then I poured in sauce till I had a sheet of fruit liquid that was about 1/8 of an inch thick, spreading it out with a spatula.

I placed them in the oven at 170F (the lowest my oven goes) and left them in there overnight.  The next morning, I was too afraid to leave the oven on again all day, so I turned it off, but when I got home, I put it back on for another couple of hours.  When it was hard enough in the middle that my finger didn’t indent, but was easily peeled off the parchment paper, it was done!  I sliced it up in strips with a pizza cutter and rolled them like fruit tape.

The edges were a bit crispy (because they were thinner) but the fruit leather probably could have cooked for a few hours longer since there’s a lot of condensation in the bag I’m keeping the fruit leather in.

Still, it tastes JUST like store-bought fruit leather!  I just take a “roll” with me to work for a quick snack and bask in how easy it was to make!