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How To Make Fruit Leather

Kimberly Killebrew
Making your own fruit leather is not only simple, it's free of junk ingredients and tastes even better than store-bought!
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4.75 from 8 votes

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

Experiment with fun flavor combinations, the sky's the limit! (Apple-pear, apple-cinnamon, peach-strawberry, plum-banana, and the list goes on and on.)
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