Every year my mom and I make Apricot Fruit Leather. It’s so good and super healthy. Since I posted it last year, someone asked if other fruit could be used. My mom remembers trying other flavors in the past, but always had the best success with apricots. So I decided to take up the challenge of trying some other flavors out. This week it was Strawberries and it turned out great.
I used the exact same recipe from Apricot Leather for the Strawberry. 2 cups strawberries, 2 T. honey, 1 T. lemon juice. Blend, spread, and dry.
I’ve heard you can dry your leather in the oven at a very low temp, but I love to do it in the sun. I use these old drying racks, but you can use almost anything, as long as the top is covered with holes to let in sun and air, but keep out bugs and dirt. The Strawberry leather took a little bit longer to dry, an extra day, but still delicious. And I don’t even notice the little seeds.
Since Strawberry Leather was such a success, I’m on to peach and possibly plum. I will have to take off the skins of those ones and that may make it a little too time consuming to be worth it, well see. What fruit have you tried to dry before?
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That looks sooo yummy!
I actually have a Sunbeam Fruit Drier. I have dried my own fruit plenty of times but have never tried the fruit leather because I didn’t have a recipe now I might have to give it a go.
I’ve never tried it before, but it looks very do-able. Would you mind sharing where one can buy the drying trays?
I wonder if my kids would eat that. If it were strawberry I bet they would… Thanks for a great recipe!
i have made strawberry, blueberry/peach, peach and a mixed berry. my little boy loves them all and would just eat them like there is no tomorrow. i haven’t made any yet this summer though.
I have many happy memories of my grandma’s apricot fruit leather. Thanks for the recipe, and for working out the kinks of the strawberry…that looks awesome!
Hi Marie! That looks so good! We used to make apple butter when I was a kid (basically you make applesauce, add a fair bit of cinnamon, then cook it down all day–we used a crockpot) then make fruit leather out of that. Such a fond memory from childhood :) We’re headed out to visit my parents in a big agricultural center in California tomorrow and we’ll be doing a lot of fruit picking. We’ll plan to try it there!
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My mom used to make plum, it is delicious. It was my favorite fruit leather flavor and I don’t even like fresh plums. I remember there being big flecks in it; I think she might have left the skin on. Besides strawberry she also tried strawberry banana which was pretty good and apple.
Yum Yum Yum! I want to make blueberry!
Great recipe! Thanks for sharing; I’ve always wanted to make this but thought it was too hard. This sounds easy!
Sorry, I must be dense, but what are those drying racks for exactly? How do I find them?
I saw a mom feeding fruit-by-the-fruit to her kid on a plane the other day. I thought it would be a great travel snack but would much prefer a homemade recipe to one with processed garbage in it.
Thanks!
For the drying racks, they actually came from my Mom’s fruit dryer at home. I didn’t want to lug the whole dryer to my house, so I just took the racks to use in the sun.
You don’t actually need racks. You can use any kind of tray to lay your plastic on. And you don’t really need anything on top either. I do put a screen on top to keep the bugs out, but let air in.
What other things have any of you used to dry the fruit?
I’ve made some fruit leather with the flavored applesauces in a dehydrator (I tried the oven but it burned). My daughter liked the idea at first, but hasn’t quite adapted to it, she prefers the fruit rollups. I want to try pumpkin rollups, just need to get everything to do it. I’ve thought about using some leftover babyfood too.
I’ve got a friend that dries cranberries (she adds some sugar to them though so they’re not as sour) and grapes (to make her own raisins), but doing those in the sun might take too long.
As for peeling the peaches, when Mom and I canned peaches, we blanched them and then the skins popped right off whole. It would probably work with Plums too.
What a cool project – Might make some for my niece and nephew :)
Have a great day :)
I’m interested in trying vegetable leather. First, I’ll start out with string beans and then move on to corn. If that works out, I’ll try cauliflower and potato.
I’ll keep you posted with the results.
-Brian
Caroline – Great tip about the peaches and blanching them to get the skins right off. I bet it would work for the plums too.
Hev – great project for the kids!
Brian – I dare you to try those! I bet some would be good. I can’t wait to try your cauliflower leather!
At the risk of sounding stupid, I had NO idea you could make your own fruit rollups!
I cannot wait to try this. Looks fab! We spend so much on the Clif fruit sticks – which are delish, but homemade is so much better.
Oh I am so going to try this. That sounds really easy. My boys would love it!
Hi- I recently saw an episode of “Good Eats with Alton Brown” where he made beef jerkey. He used Air Conditioner filters as drying racks for the jerkey- one on bottom, one as a cover. I think these would work great for the fruit leather! Just a thought…
yeh! I was waiting for this post, I am going to try it again and hopefully this time be sucessful :)
Jennifer – I love Alton Brown! I’m sure those filters would work great. Good idea. Let me know if you try it, how it works!
I have a little one and I know they are not supposed to have honey before one year. Have you ever used anything else to act as a binding agent or tried it without the honey?
I love to dry fruit and the kids love the project too.
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Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe! My mother passed away 7 years ago and this is a recipe that wasn’t recorded. I knew that she used honey and she would lay it out in the sun to dry and roll it up just like you! I was so excited to see what you did!! This is a childhood favorite of mine! Thank you Thank you!
I make fruit leather every year using a dehydrator – but I don’t add the honey. I truly simply blend the fruit and pour it out onto sheets. In anywhere from 10-16 hours in the dehydrator it is done. My favorite as a child was apricots – but my kids love apple the best (using applesauce). I have also mixed berries with applesauce and it tastes great!
I use a dehydrator (yardsale find!) and use applesauce and pureed fruit. We mixed the strawberry w/ applesauce last season- tasted like strawberry.
I have also plopped diff flavors on teh same tray for a mixed roll. And used babyfood mixed with generic applesauce (a friend gave me her no longer needed jars of babyfood).
Sigh, I don’t know what I did wrong but I tried to dry strawberries once (oven method) but they stayed wet for waaaay too long and then were kind of brown by the time it all started to set. It wasn’t appetizing and they didn’t taste very good but I”m not sure what I did wrong since it was over a year ago that I attempted this. Yours look BEAUTIFUL and perfect. If I can get a bunch of strawberries I’m willing to sacrifice to try this again, I will. Fingers are crossed!
Has anyone tried making these successfully in the oven?
Do you know what the shelf life is? :)
Fairly Odd Mother – The lemon juice in her recipe probably keeps the brown away. I know when you add apples or bananas to a fruit salad (or don’t use a cut avocado right away), you’re supposed to squeeze lemon juice over them to keep them from browning. I assume the same principle applies here. :-)
Fairly Odd Mother – Are you saying that you made just dried whole strawberries, or puree strawberries for leather? Either way, I’m wondering how high your temperature was. I’ve dried whole fruit before, but the temp for the oven needs to be way way low, like 200 or something. I’m sure there’s more on the internet about that.
If you’re talking leather, this recipe does call for lemon juice that helps in keeping the fruit from browning, so maybe that was missing from what you’ve done before, like what Vicki said! Try that and see if it helps.
Becky Sue – I’m not exactly sure, but my Mom has had some around for a few months at a time, at least. How she can not eat it all is beyond me. I’m usually the one who finishes it off. It does need to stay wrapped pretty well in the plastic, or it will get hard and crunchy, even though I still eat it that way, I LOVE it!!
Plum is easy, and you don’t have to pull the skin off, just blend it really well in a blender and you’re good to go. Extra fiber!
Apricot leather tasted yum…………..my kids loved it.Have you tried it with mangoes.I use Indian Alphonso mangoes.You don’t need honey just the lemon juice………tastes great.
I found the drying racks on the internet, but then had an idea. I went to our local home supercenter and bought premade screens. I used them exclusively to make leather and much cheaper.
Thanks for the tips on strawberry leather. I’m going to try the lemon juice.
In my opinion, peaches are the best all around fruit for leather. I buy seconds, (cheap and ripe), take out the pits, and grind them up skin an all, The skin is a god addition, not a concession because I’m lazy. Peaches “leather up” so well that I use them mixed with others, like cherries and raspberries, that are either expensive, time consuming, or don’t “leather up” so well.
You might try sprinkling a little powdered sugar on finished leather if you want to sweeten. That is, if you’re not opposed to refined sugar. Adding sweetners to the mix can make it more brittle and less leathery.
Thx
My mom and I used to make fruit leather when I was a little kid. I loved it. It was sticky and messy. But without her to clean up after me anymore, I am now learning the free ride that I got from her. I went searching on the internet, and found a company that had the original recipe for fruit leather. We started selling their product on our website and would love to hear your comments if you think it tastes as good as your homemade batch. A little less messy, but hopefully just as tasty and fun!
http://www.nutsonline.com/driedfruit/fruit-leather/
Look forward to hearing your comments.