Strawberry Fruit Leather

Directions

Rinse, taste, and prep the strawberries (can substitute with other fruit): Rinse the fruit.

Taste the strawberries before proceeding. Note how sweet the strawberries are. If very sweet you will not need to add any sugar. If still a little tart, you may need to add some sugar in the next step.

Cook strawberries with water, sugar, lemon juice, spices: Place strawberries in a large saucepan. Add a half cup of water for every 4 cups of chopped fruit (4 cups of fruit makes about one baking sheet of fruit leather).

Bring to a simmer, cover and let cook on a low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until the fruit is cooked through. Uncover and stir.

Use a potato masher to mash up the fruit in the pan.

Taste the fruit and determine what and how much sugar, lemon juice, or spices to add.

(Optional) Add sugar in small amounts (1 Tbsp at a time if working with 4 cups of fruit), to desired level of sweetness.

Add lemon juice one teaspoon at a time to help brighten the flavor of the fruit. Add a pinch or two of cinnamon, nutmeg, or other spices to augment the flavor.

Continue to simmer and stir until any added sugar is completely dissolved and the fruit purée has thickened, another 5 or 10 minutes (or more).

Purée the cooked, mashed fruit: Put the purée through a food mill or chinoise. Alternatively purée it thoroughly in a blender or food processor.

Taste again and adjust sugar/lemon/spices if necessary. The purée should be very smooth.

Pour purée into lined baking sheet: Line a rimmed baking sheet with sturdy plastic wrap (the kind that is microwave safe). Pour out the purée into the lined baking sheet to about an 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness.

Slowly dry out in oven at a very low temp: Place the baking sheet in the oven, try to keep any plastic wrap from touch the sides of the oven or the oven racks. Also try to make sure that the plastic wrap hasn’t folded back over on top of the purée. If this happens, the purée won’t dry out.

Heat the oven to a low 140°F. If you have a convection setting, use it, it will speed up the process and help dry out the purée. Let dry in the oven like this for as long as it takes for the purée to dry out and form fruit leather (about 8-12 hours). The fruit leather is ready when it is no longer sticky, but has a smooth surface.

Alternatives to the oven. If you have a food dehydrator, this would be a great use of it.

Roll up in its plastic wrap to store: When the fruit leather is ready, you can easily peel it up from the plastic wrap.

To store it, roll it in its plastic wrap, put it in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator or freezer.