[Scotty H]Homemade Fruit Leather 101

Scotty H has posted a new item, 'Homemade Fruit Leather 101 in 2010'

Got fruit? We recently went Blackberry picking and easily bagged 1-1/2 gallons of fresh blackberries. What a blessing it is to live in a place that there is a plentiful supply of these wonderful morsels for the taking. It’s first come first serve on the roads that house the wild brambles. We were not the first to pick the ripe fruit from the thorn riddled branches, but we still went home with plenty. It’s a wonderful year in our county for wild berry picking. We had plenty of rain early this year which has aided in berry production. We still have plenty of time to go pick more.

When I have too much fruit, my first thought is always fresh Fruit Leather! The dehydrator has been a wonderful addition to my kitchen. If you have one, have you used it lately? I try to keep mine going constantly (hopefully you have noticed from my previous posts). In fact as I sit and write this I have corn chips dehydrating right now!

This was my first try at blackberry fruit leather. Knowing the fruit can be a little tart, I did add a little sugar and stevia to the mix, I do not normally add sugar to my leather recipes. Blackberries can be a little extra work also because of the seeds. But they are worth it!

After the blackberries were picked I rinsed and soaked them in filtered water over night in the fridge. I emptied the water through a strainer, boiled to remove any contaminants and what I got was a wonderful deep purple blackberry fruit juice base that I saved for the kids tea base.

Here’s what I did with the fruit.

First I took the berries and ran them through the Vita-Mix. Then I removed the seeds by squeezing the fruit through a filter bag. (sorry I didn’t take photos, it was messy!)

Next I added 2 apples (cored) 1/2 cup organic sugar and approx 4 cups of berries back in the Vita-Mix.

Blend until smooth. Use a spatula to spread the fruit mixture evenly on Teflex sheets. As thick as you can. Make sure you don’t try to get too close to the edge, the mixture is quite thin and does tend to ooze to the side! I left approx 2 inches all the way around. The color was beautiful!

The next photo shows what it looked like when it was done. It took approx 8 hours. You know when it’s done by the fact it doesn’t stick to your finger when you touch it . This sheet was moved to a piece of parchment and is ready to roll.

The following photo shows the finished product.

I store all the fruit leather in an easy to open container to promote snacking by the kids. It’s these great snacks that I want them to choose!

Can you imagine anything easier? The fruit you use does not need to be beautiful to do this. Have any fruit that’s being passed up because it’s a little bruised or over ripe? Make Fruit Leather!!!!!

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