How To Make Fruit Leather
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Making a wholesome, no added sugar treat for yourself and your family couldn’t be easier!
Too many food items you find in the store are full of ingredients that belong in a toxic waste depository rather than in a food item that’s consumed by kids or grownups. Fruit leather is an age-old natural sweet treat that needs absolutely nothing else added to it to be delicious, perfectly chewy and visually attractive. Yet too often the store-bought stuff adds fillers, preservatives, ingredients to improve texture and food coloring. And usually the fruit is from concentrate.
Case in point, here is the ingredients list from a leading brand of fruit roll-ups: Pears From Concentrate, Corn Syrup, Dried Corn Syrup, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Acetylated Mono and Diglycerides, Pectin, Malic Acid, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Natural Flavor, Color (Yellow 5&6, Red 40, Blue 1)
Now compare that with the ingredients list of homemade fruit roll-ups: 100% real whole fruit.
That’s it.
Throw that store-bought stuff in the garbage where it belongs and discover how crazy simple it is to make fruit roll-ups yourself!
This method of making fruit leather can be used for most kinds of fruit, and how much water you add to the fruit will depend on how juicy the fruit already is. Choose the fruit you like best or use a combination of fruits or berries. There are so many fun and flavorful combinations like apple-pear, strawberry peach, banana strawberry, and the list goes on and on. You can also add spices like cinnamon and cloves to your fruit leather.
We have three Italian plum trees on our property and I’ve been putting them to use in a variety of ways (plum butter, plum sauce, canned plums, dried prunes, etc), all in an attempt to not let any of the fruit go to waste. I’ve successfully processed over 250 pounds of plums in the past four weeks!
Making plum leather is one of the ways I’ve been putting these plums to use. We also have apple and pear trees and have been making and bottling a bunch of cider. I’ll also be making apple-cinnamon leather for our family as well – my kids have already been begging for it!
My kids LOVE this stuff. They’ll do practically anything for it. (Hmmm, now that’s an idea :) They’ve also been enjoying helping me pick and wash and de-seed the fruit. But most of all, they enjoy devouring it. And it’s a great feeling to give your kids something that you know is pure and wholesome.
Once you’ve made your first batch of it you’re going to make it again and again, because it’s so, so simple to make!
Again, I’m using plums to illustrate how to make fruit leather, but you can use any fruit of your choice.
Let’s get started!
Place the fruit in a pot. If the fruit is really juicy, like plums, apples, peaches, etc, then you hardly have to add much of any water, just barely enough to keep the bottom from scorching. So just eyeball it, add maybe 1/4 cup or water or so. Check on your fruit as it is stewing to make sure it isn’t scorching. If it looks like it needs a little more water, add more.
Cover and stew the fruit for 5-10 minutes or until softened.
Puree the fruit until smooth. You can transfer it to a countertop blender or use an immersion blender.
Pour the pureed fruit onto lined cookies sheets (either silicone or parchment paper).
Spread it out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch or slightly less.
You can dehydrate the fruit leather in either a conventional oven or in a food dehydrator, whichever you prefer. I have a dehydrator but prefer to use the oven for this. It’s super simple spreading it out on two cookies sheets and placing them in the oven.
Heat the oven 140°F. To speed up the process you can turn on the convection setting if you have one. Typically it takes 8-12 hours to dry out. You’ll know your fruit leather is done when the surface is smooth and no longer sticky.
If you’re using parchment paper the fruit leather is easiest to remove while it’s still slightly warm to prevent it from sticking to paper.
I prefer to use a silicone baking mat but my new mats were still on their way for delivery when I made this. Still, either works well. 
Slice the fruit leather into strips.
You can store the fruit leather either as one large strip and slice it later or store it in strips.
To store it, roll it in plastic wrap and then in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
Enjoy!
Naturally gluten free, paleo and vegan.
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How To Make Fruit Leather
Ingredients
- Fruit of your choice or any combination of fruits and berries ,washed, de-seeded as applicable, leave the peels on for added nurtition
- Ground cinnamon and/or cloves if desired
Instructions
- Place the fruit in a pot (if using ground spices, add them too). If the fruit is really juicy, like plums, apples, peaches, etc, then you hardly have to add any water, just barely enough to keep the bottom from scorching. So just eyeball it, add maybe 1/4 cup of water or so. Check on your fruit as it is stewing to make sure it isn't scorching. If it looks like it needs a little more water, add more. Cover and stew the fruit for 5-10 minutes or until softened.
- Puree the fruit until smooth. You can transfer it to a countertop blender or use an immersion blender. Pour the pureed fruit onto lined cookies sheets (either silicone or parchment paper). Spread it out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch or slightly less.
- Heat the oven 140°F. To speed up the process you can turn on the convection setting if you have one. It typically takes 8-12 hours to dry out. You'll know your fruit leather is done when the surface is smooth and no longer sticky. (Note: You can dehydrate the fruit leather in either a conventional oven or in a food dehydrator, whichever you prefer. I have a dehydrator but prefer to use the oven for this. It's super simple spreading it out on two cookies sheets and placing them in the oven.
- Slice the fruit leather into strips. (You can store the fruit leather either as one large strip and slice it later or store it in strips. Note: If you're using parchment paper the fruit leather is easiest to remove while it's still slightly warm to prevent it from sticking to paper.)
- To store it, roll it in plastic wrap and then in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
Notes
Hi, I’m Kimberly Killebrew and welcome to Daring Gourmet where you'll find delicious originals, revitalized classics, and simply downright good eats from around the world! Originally from Germany, later raised in England, world-traveled, and now living in the U.S., from my globally-influenced kitchen I invite you to tour the world through your taste buds!
I’m using a ” little chief” smoker to make my first fruit leather batch ever. It heats only to 150 degrees which should be ok. After eight hours only the bottom rack is done, so I removed it and now letting the other three racks continue there drying. Is this little smoker ok to be using for this process?Thank you.
Hi Edwin, that temp is a little on the high side – generally the lower the temperature the more evenly things will dry. But it sounds like your setup is working with rotating the racks, so go ahead and keep at it!
I want to try making plum leather, but how many plums or pounds do I use? How many (approx) for 2 cookie sheets. Thank you!
I use to make fruit leather in blender, if too juicy I added over ripe bananas. Every recipe I see now it says to cook the fruit. Is cooking it really necessary?
Hi Carolyn, you’re correct, you don’t have to cook the fruit. I think it depends on the type of fruit – as with vegetables, I think the process of cooking brings out the flavor and sweetness of some fruits more than others.
Hiya!
I’ve made a LOT of fruit leather over the years with many different fruit/veggie combos. I occasionally encounter a problem where fissures and cracks form in the puree as it’s drying. Still tastes great, of course, but isn’t nearly as attractive when I plan on gifting some of it. I’m wondering if anyone else has ever seen this, or knows what causes it? Thanks!
Cracks sound like your puree either has too much water, too little water, or is being dried too quickly.
Trying this with half blueberries, half SCOBY (mixing the SCOBY in after I cook the fruit, I don’t wanna kill it)! I tend to grow lots and lots of extra SCOBYs when I make my kombucha, if this works it’d be a great way to use ‘em up (and sneak some probiotics into the kid’s treats!
Just found this post. I am very interested to know how using your extra Kombucha SCOPY worked out, as this sounds like an excellent way to enrich the fruit leather and a great way to utilise all my extra SCOBY. Could you provide an update please?
Right out of the hot pot and into the oven the italian prune took overnight and more to set up…used parchment on cookie trays. So delicious!!! I happened to cook so much I stored it in the refer to make the leather the next day. Only took 6 t0 8 hours as opposed to the 10 to 16 hours for the hot out of the pan mixture. So delicious!!! Wondering how the cooling process worked for a faster set as opposed to the hot. Italian prunes have no pectin. Anyway my grandkids couldn’t get enough so next year I will be very busy.
I have made fruit leather few times including with veggies but cannot get a consistent texture. What do you recommend for the portions of fruit like two cups or three. I didn’t see it on the recipe. Thanks!
Hi Jasmine, I haven’t tried making fruit leather with veggies so I’m unable to make recommendations for the ratios. Perhaps one of our readers has and can chime in.
I have apple-strawberry-carrot leather in the oven and cannot wait to try it!
Great flavor combo, Sarah!
If I end up with fruit chips did I have the oven on too high?
Hi Subhadra, yes, it was either on too high or the leather dried too long.
Hello, is it inside oven at 140 for 8-12 hours? I really want to make this but not sure about having my oven running for that length of time.
Yes, that is correct. The alternative is to use a food dehydrator.
can i just put the fruit thru a juicer and then dry it or do you need to cook first?
Hi Chris, if you put the fruit through a juicer it will remove all the pulp and you’ll end up with fruit juice, not fruit pulp. You need fruit pulp in order to make leather.
Hello. Would this recipe work if using figs?
Hy cohly, you can use this process for any kind of fruit, just know that with figs the texture of the leather will be very gritty from all the tiny seeds.
Hello there
I really want to try this recipe, but I don’t have a dehydrator and when I turn on the oven, the lowest temp it’ll go to is 170. Is that safe to make the fruit leather? Or will that burn it?
Hi Sujata, that will be perfectly fine, I would just leave the door of the oven cracked open slightly.
Deeeelicious! Absolutely NO reason to buy these, there’s so easy to make, taste 100% better and are so much healthier. Thank you for sharing this recipe, we’ve used it several times already!
Wonderful, thank you, Candace!
Just wondering why you prefer the oven. I have a dehydrator and can make so much more using it. Is there a drawback?
Hi Johnnie, no drawback at all to using a dehydrator. I can just fit more in my oven using large cookie sheets and cleanup is a breeze.
Nothing beats homemade fruit leather. Love the idea of plum leather. That’s one I’ve never tried. It looks wonderful.