Saturday Cooking: Fruit Leathers!

Sometimes my life here is really exciting; today was not one of those times.  That is unless you find fruit leathers really exciting (like I do) then, well, this just might blow you away.  I have found myself spending quite a bit more time in the kitchen, particularly on Saturday afternoons, experimenting and trying new things.  Today's venture stemmed from thinking about good homemade, healthy snacks to take on an upcoming kayaking trip in May; any all day/multi day outdoor adventure require snacks, unless you want cranky travelers.  Also, I made dried apple slices a while back and they turned out pretty good, so I figured why not try some fruit leathers.  While most kids (like David) hated when parents tried to trick you into thinking these were a suitable replacement snack, I was the one who preferred these over the Fruit-By-The-Foot and Fruit Roll-Ups, and still do, but they are just so darn expensive.  Luckily, as it turns out, they are pretty easy and cheap to make!  I looked up directions on several different places, but ultimately I kind of just went with it; I still really hate following recipes step-by-step and I'm not sure why. 

1. Cut and clean the fruit you want to use (I used strawberries), cutting away any spots that you wouldn't normally want to eat.

2. Add to large saucepan with enough water to cover the bottom.  I don't think the amount of water is important; you want enough to stew the fruit, but the more you have the longer it will likely take your final product to dry.

3. Add the juice from one small lemon (I think this helps bring out the flavors) and sugar to taste.  I only added a sprinkle to mine because as the leather dries the natural sugar from the fruit will become more concentrated, so be careful not to add too much.

4. Cook the fruit until it is very soft and mushy.

 

5. Then add the fruit to a blender and puree

This made about 2 cookie sheets of fruit leathers.

6. OK here's the tricky part.  Line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap and brush with olive oil.  This step about made me lose my mind.  I had at least 3 attempts with plastic wrap before it was thrown across the kitchen because the plastic was sticking only to itself and NOT where I wanted it.  One time I managed to carefully lie it on the pan I messed it up when I tried to brush it.  This led me to use parchment paper.  I brushed the pan first with oil and then put the paper on top, the oil helps the paper to stick down.  Then I brushed the paper with a little bit more oil to avoid the fruit sticking to it.  Genius.  I filled one pan with about half of the puree and evened it out with a spatula.  Then I considered that the fruit might still get really stuck to the paper and I would be either A. eating a lot of parchment paper or B. ruin an entire afternoon's attempt at fruit leather.  This led me to the plastic once again for the second time.  This time I was smarter than the plastic wrap.  I again brushed the pan with oil so the plastic wrap had no choice but to stick.  Gotcha!  I then had myself a little experiment testing which worked better: parchment paper or plastic wrap, at which point I considered writing this post entire in the format of a lab report (nerd alert), but decided to save the public from complete and utter boredom.  You can thank me later.  Oops.  Sorry about the excessively long step 6!

Don't worry, each tray had equal time on the top and bottom rack
in order to ensure only 1 independent variable.

7.  These bad boys go into the oven at about 140 F or 60 C to dry out.  It helps to keep the oven door propped open a bit to get the air circulating around the trays. 

8.  Wait an excessively long time for fruit to dry.  On the bright side, all this made the apartment smell absolutely delightful, but that just made me want them to finish sooner.  In the end it took about 4 hours.  Some unevenly thin parts were a little too dry and I would want them a little thicker next time, so timing will vary.

9.  Discover that parchment paper and plastic wrap work equally well and decide you will definitely use only parchment paper next time.

10.  Enjoy homemade fruit leathers!

10.  Try other fruits.


Verdict: Success!

These will definitely be making an appearance on future outdoor adventure trips as a super yummy and healthy snack hopefully with some other tasty flavors.