We don't use the dehydrator all that often, but will soon to dry lots of apples. Winesap is our favorite variety for drying. We don't have a juicer, but we've been making some peaches into pies and jam.
My mom used to make a lot of fruit leather. As kids we ate it as fast as she could make it and it drove her crazy. She made it in the oven, turned at low temp. I just buy it now, better than candy for the kiddos.
September 16, 2009 at 5:16 PM
[Image]We've had a plethora of wonderful peaches lately. Some of the ones that fell on the ground bruised a bit, so I decided to try something different with them--make fruit leather. I always called it fruit roll-ups, but I guess it's the same thing, except the homemade version is so much healthier. I found various recipes on the Internet and decided to incorporate a few to make my own. My ingredients: peaches, honey, lemon juice (and for one batch, cinnamon). I took the skins off the peaches and cut off the bad sections, putting the good parts into the blender. I added a couple squirts of lemon juice (maybe 2 teaspoons worth), and about 1/4 cup honey. Then I turned the blender onto puree. [Image]I put Saran wrap down on the dehydrator sheets, and then poured the fruit leather mixture onto the plastic, using a spatula to spread it out into a somewhat uniform thickness. [Image]Next it was into the dehydrator at 135 degrees. Some recipes said for 6-8 hours, but with the thickness I had, it was more like 10-12 hours. Other variations are to put the fruit leather into your oven at the lowest setting with the door open for a couple hours, or to put it onto big cookie sheets covered with cheesecloth and let dry outside in the sun for a couple days. [Image]The end result is a firm fruit leather. If you're my husband and son, you just eat it straight from the plastic wrap, and suddenly it's all gone because it tastes so good! (They seriously ate one whole sheet in just one sitting.) The taste of the peaches is really concentrated, so it's almost like candy. You can also roll up the plastic, cut it into pieces, and put into Ziploc bags for storage. If you want to keep the fruit leather for awhile (say, because you're so tired of peaches), then you can put the Ziploc in the freezer and it will keep for a few months. Yum!
posted by Desert Survivor at 12:19 PM on Sep 14, 2009
5 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formAnd it's a great snack to take hiking:)
September 14, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Yum! We used to eat fruit leather as kids, and that looks really good.
September 14, 2009 at 7:54 PM
I've gone approx. 90% eating RAW FOODS...I've lost 34 lbs in 33 days! Do you use your dehydrator often? Do you have a juicer, too??
September 14, 2009 at 8:28 PM
We don't use the dehydrator all that often, but will soon to dry lots of apples. Winesap is our favorite variety for drying. We don't have a juicer, but we've been making some peaches into pies and jam.
September 16, 2009 at 4:44 PM
My mom used to make a lot of fruit leather. As kids we ate it as fast as she could make it and it drove her crazy. She made it in the oven, turned at low temp. I just buy it now, better than candy for the kiddos.
September 16, 2009 at 5:16 PM