Fruit Leather

[Rawmommie]

Does anyone have a good recipe for this? There was one with my dehydrator, but it has cooked ingredients and sugar. I'm looking for something healthy for my kids and my daughter loves the nasty store bought fruit roll ups. I'm guessing honey is an ingredient, but I can't figure out how the rest of it is made.

Karen

[Rawkinlocs]

I usually just blend up fruit with a little water (or if you want, you can juice some apples and add the juice) and sometimes I'll blend in dates with it, but if you use honey, I'm sure you can use that as well. Blend into a puree and spread ont the dehydrator sheets (or teflex, parchment, etc.) and dehydrated until it's no longer wet in any spot to the touch. I usually put it in and leave overnight and into the next day until it's ready...never really timed it.

My main base is usually almost always apples and then I'll add other fruits for the flavor. Some of the blends my kids like are:
Plain apple
Strawberry (apples are added for the base, though)
Strawberry-banana
Apple-grape (the dark grapes...they produce a lot of water, so I added a little flax seed to it to thicken it up a little.
They REALLY love sour blends due to having this thing for all the sour candy that's out now-a-days, so I'll make Granny Smith apples, juice of a lemon, kiwi, and maybe one sweet apple so the tartness isn't TO over-powering.

But I've made some with just any and every kind of fruit blended together...I guess a "fruit punch" leather of sorts.

Just have fun trying new flavors and let the kids in on the making of it, the choosing of the fruits they want, etc.

Now, mind you, the homemade version will taste NOTHING like the "popular brands"...my kids used to love those too - still do actually, but I won't buy 'em anymore. But if you can get your kids to eat the more natural ones that they sell in whole food-type stores, then they'll like the ones from home.

[Rawmommie]

Thanks Rawkin! I have strawberry/banana in there right now, I hope it turns out good! :)

Karen

[LindyLoo]

Hi Rawmommie

When I make fruit leathers, I never use any other sweetner, the fruit, especially once dehydrated, has its own concentrated sweetness.

I also love coconut so often mix that in as well. Today I blended a pineapple with some raw coconut, which I bought in a bag from a Health Shop, so really convenient. The intensity of flavour was incredible.

Another favourite when on a mountain walk is berries and coconut (strawberry works particularly well). I confess I also add some whey protein which I know isn't raw but works well for me.

Another old favourite is blueberry and banana - fantastic!

Happy eating.

[Curtis]

Working on bananas now myself :)