Healthy Homemade Fruit Leather

Making your own homemade fruit leather is such a simple process that I have pushed this blog article idea toward the bottom of my list but somehow it has continued to take on an energy of its own and keeps surfacing. So, I have honored that! My reason for not making this article a priority is the fact that its so simple, easy and feels like “everyone already knows this” I am often reminded as I stroll along through daily life that I need to continually take myself outside of my “normal” and remember that its very far from “American societies normal” So, with that being said, I share with you, my easy and fun method for making healthy and delicious fruit leather. First I would like to review many great reasons why you would want to make your own vs buying it off the grocery store shelf. I’m sure one of the top reasons that come to mind for many of you would be *Money Saving* and Yes, that is one great plus! Lets review a few other reasons that are extremely important. Most fruit leathers or fruit roll ups that would be purchased from a store really contain NO FRUIT at all! I will list the ingredients that most contain.

• Fruit from concentrate
• Partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil
• Corn syrup solids
• High fructose corn syrup
• Sugar dried corn syrup
• Several artificial colorings

Yeah, where’s the REAL FOOD in that! ?! Not only do those NOT contain any healthy ingredients BUT those ingredients are all detrimental to your health. I know I don’t want any of that in my body and certainly don’t want to be feeding that to my family. It seems so funny to me that people pay for that. But, when we know better, we do better, right?! That is my intention! To inform and inspire a better, healthier, simpler and more sustainable way to live!

I am not going to give any exact recipe because I don’t really have one! I create, mix and match and you just cant go wrong! Dive into that creative part of you and test out many! Find your favorites! I often try to use fresh fruit that is in season. I have been doing LOTS of apple this fall. So, you can steam a few apples and puree them in a blender or use pre-made applesauce. I make my own homemade apple sauce so I will just pour that onto the plastic dehydrator sheet. You can mix and match any fruits that you want. You can add many spices and seasonings as well. A dash of cinnamon can be added to apples. Cloves, ginger, nutmeg. Adding organic spices ups the health benefits as well. I have made pear, spiced pear, strawberry, apple, mixed berry, peach and wild grape. You can also use frozen fruits. I harvest many fruits when they are in season and freeze them. Just thaw out the frozen fruits, puree them in a blender or food processor until smooth and add them to your dehydrator. I still have yet to try pineapple, raspberry and mango. Problem is, we gobble up that fresh fruit so quickly that it never makes it to the dehydrator.

I know there is a really easy oven method as well, but I can not personally speak about that method as I have only ever used my food dehydrator for fruit leathers. I received a dehydrator as a gift about 14 years ago and it sat untouched in the box for years and its making up for it now as I have used it MANY hours over the last several years for many projects.

Simple review of the process.

1. Create any kind of fruit puree that sounds good to you.
2. Put a bit on coconut oil on your fruit tray liner to be sure that it does not stick.
3. Dump fruit puree on your plastic lined dehydrator tray.
4. Smooth out with a spatula.
5. Turn on dehydrator and let it dry for 7 to 12 hours, depending on fruit you are using. You will know it is done by checking to make sure there are no spots on it that feel damp or moist.

It can be stored it airtight plastic zip lock bags or containers for storage. It will keep fine at room temperature as long as its dried completely. Ours never stay in storage! Its a favorite at our house so it doesn’t last long enough.

*Side note, you do NOT have to add any sugar! When drying a fruit it brings out the natural sweetness that the fruit contains. If you are using a tart fruit by the time its dry its sweet enough. I have not yet found one that needed to be more sweet. If you do feel like yours need sweetened then add a LITTLE bit of honey to it when its in puree form.

Feel free to become addicted to fruit leather, guilt free!!

ENJOY! Be Well!