Fruit Leather

Grant is really good about eating most fruits and vegetables that I prepare for him. He gets really squeamish if anything doesn’t look 100% pristine, and if we aren’t in the mood for smoothies, I have made fruit leather a few times. I wouldn’t say that it is very cost effective if you go out and buy fruits for it, but if you have everything and want a way to use it up, this is a great way. Below are the step by step instructions that I used.

Here is all of the fruit that I had around that I cut up into manageable pieces for the food processor.

Puree, add more and keep going until everything is a pulp.

You don’t have to strain it, but I didn’t want chunks or larger seeds in it.

I used this spatula to help this process along.

This is what I had remaining.

I added a little bit of sugar after tasting the concoction and some lemon juice to help as well.

Lay parchment paper or wax I think onto your cookie sheet.

Spread out the mixture, and don’t put very much because you want it VERY thin.

I ended up not making it even enough which meant it took longer in the oven.

The amount in the container made two cookie sheets worth.

Put it in the oven for hours, just keep checking for when it is completely dry and can easily be peeled off of the parchment paper on the lowest setting that your oven has. Obviously, if you have a dehydrator, this is much better, but I didn’t have one.

We actually ate the fruit leather too fast ,and I didn’t get a good picture. So, I borrow this picture from http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/2008/06/homemade-strawb.html

Have you ever made fruit leather?