Turn your fresh fruit into a handy and sensible snack on-the-go. Fruit strips, dried fruit bars and fruit leathers refer to the same healthy fruit snack.
These easy to make chewy gems can become a staple in lunches, part of an on-the-go breakfast or a post-workout snack. The best thing is, you don’t need to have an expensive dehydrator (although the instructions work for one if you do).
First you need 6 cups of pureed fruit, pick your own fruits. You can cook up fresh fruit and puree it, use any number of already pureed fruits, applesauce or even baby food. You can use applesauce as a low cost base and add in a little bit of cooked and pureed fruits or baby food fruit to flavor it. Experiment.
For more sweetness use a bit of honey or agave. For more tartness use lemon, grapefruit or orange juice. Start with a Tablespoon and watch the consistency dependant on if you want thin rolls or thicker leather.
Pour onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment/wax paper or a dehydrator tray lined with parchment/wax paper.
Bake 10-12 hours at 170 degrees or place in the dehydrator 6-10 hours (check your manual). If you can’t use the oven that long, you can The fruit strips should be as firm as you like them.
You might like to cut them and leave the wax paper on the piece for easy transporting.
Here’s a great video on YouTube that shows how it’s done: