Seeking Fruit Leather Recipes + Advice

[baroness]

I found two 'floor model' appliances on clearance yesterday - a breadmaker (Oster 9050) and a dehydrator Nesco/American Harvest FD-75PR). After all discounting, they both joined my household for under $35 total.

It's not the season here to be drying excess produce, so I thought my first project could be fruit leather/roll-ups. Do you have any favorite recipes and/or advice to share?

[Norm Matthews]

I have made this recipe in the oven and in a dehydrator.

APPLE LEATHER

8 MED. APPLES, coarse chop

1/4 tsp. GROUND GINGER

1/4 C. HONEY OR LIGHT Corn syrup

1/4 tsp. GROUND CINNAMON

2 T. LEMON OR LIME JUICE

Process ingredients to puree. Line jelly roll pan with wax paper or plastic.

Put up the sides to contain it. Tilt to make a thin even layer. Dry in oven set at 140 degrees and door ajar. Rotate in 2-3 hours. When set, pick it up by the paper and flip over to dry on other side until leathery and peels away from paper easily. May be dried in dehydrator or convection oven. Use winesap, golden, Jonathan, northern spy, Newton, pippin or stay man.

Edited March 28, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Emily_R]

I make a ton of fruit roll ups every year, but have never done it the way Norm does, food-processing the apples. Typically I will make some very thick applesauce as the base, and then other fruits get cooked in with that. So I'll make a huge pot of applesauce and add in (usually frozen) peaches, or strawberries, or (my favorite) concord grapes towards the end, when the apples are mostly cooked. I then run the whole mess -- apples and other fruit -- through a food mill to get seeds/cores/peels/ out, add some corn syrup which helps keep them flexible, and spread very thickly on the dehydrator trays. I always use applesauce as a base. I find that straight fruit puree of other fruits (like strawberries, eg.) is very sharp tasting and acidic once dehydrated, not to mention not having as much body as I like to get the puree good and thick on the dehydrator sheets.