Sunday, June 16, 2013

How to make fruit leather ❤ SO YUM!!

Finally, after many months of supplying us with their delicious fruit, our apple trees are dropping their last few leaves and getting ready to go to sleep for the long, cold winter ahead. They've worked hard for us this year and we've eaten, shared and sold hundreds of kilos of fruit. Hundreds of kilos of crisp, tart, juicy, sweet delicious apples.

And now as winter sets in and makes herself comfortable, we're making plans to use up the last 20 or so crates we have left and to switch off the cool-room. Heritage varieties of apples are delicious in their season, but are not meant to last a long time.

So along with the stewing and juicing and eating fresh, we've been making apple leather. Constantly. And the girls have been eating it as quickly as we've been making it. It's totally delicious.

So I thought I'd share the simple recipe here just in case you wanted to make some too.

First wash, peel, core and slice your apples and place them in a saucepan on a low heat on the stove.

From what I've read, the rule is to add half a cup of water to the saucepan for every four cups of chopped fruit, but I just add a big glug here and there to make sure the mixture isn't too dry and isn't sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Stir in the juice of half a lemon and some cinnamon if you feel like it. Have a taste and see if you need to add some more.

Simmer and stir. Simmer and stir, until the fruit is soft and mashable.

Using a food processor or a blender, mash the cooked fruit until it is completely smooth and lump free. Like baby food.

Lay a sheet of baking paper over your oven trays.

Spread apple mixture evenly over one oven tray at a time until the mixture is about half a centimeter deep.

Place your trays in the oven at the lowest heat setting possible and leave the oven door slightly ajar. You might need to place a spoon in the oven door to keep it from closing but beware, the spoon will get very hot.

(This oven method is wonderful for us because our wood cooker is on 24/7, but a food dehydrator will work just as well.)

Keep the fruit leather trays in the oven for as long as it takes to completely dry out. We've found it best to leave the trays in the oven overnight as the process takes about eight to ten hours.

The apple leather is ready when it is no longer sticky or wet, but dry and leather-like.

Once your apple leather is ready and dry you can peel it off the baking paper and roll it up.

Keep the baking paper sheet and use it again on your next batch.

Cut the fruit leather into little bits.

Or chop it into cereal or salads.

We like to store the rolled up apple leathers in a glass, sealed container. To be honest, I have no idea how long it will keep as our girls eat it almost as quickly as we can make it.

What I do know is how great it feels to feed our family something we have made from the freshest, organic fruit, with no sugar and only two ingredients. No nasties, no numbers.

And there have been reports that even the kids who only eat junk food in their school lunches love it too, so it must be a winner. Yay!


OK, off you go, if you get some in the oven now, it'll be ready for their school lunches tomorrow.

I'm off to peel this lot.


See ya later - apple dehydrater!!

Let me know how you go, OK.

xxxx

29 comments:

  1. Oh yum sounds and looks great. Will definatly try this. I grew up eating quava leather but you cant get quavas here!

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  2. You are so clever-what a great use of all those apples :)
    Jana

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  3. That sounds delicious and wonderful. After reading the recipe I thought, "Hey, I could make this!" Then I got to the part about cooking and I'm pretty sure my apartment would feel like furnace if I left our oven on for 8-10 hours. Hehe. Delicious sounding recipe though, and a great idea to cut it open over cereal!

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  4. They look delicious, your wood stove would be perfect for this I imagine! Enjoy your Sunday x

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  5. YUM! I have a whole lot of apples here at the moment that really need to be used, but the idea of peeling and chopping them all has been putting me off... you are inspiring me though to get off my bum!

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  6. I LOVE fruit leather...this looks so delish and so "real"...

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  7. Awesome! The husband bought a dehydrator last week so he could make jerky ( YUK!!) but I was excited at the thought of fruit leather & semi dried tomatoes come summer :)

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  8. Oh this looks like a wonderful recipe and I have bookmarked it for the autumn. I often buy natural fruit leather snacks for my girls so this is perfect for us!

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  9. Brilliant! First time I have heard of this but it does indeed sound Yum! Will give it a go when our apples are ready in the Autumn.

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  10. Oh gee...I WISH. Here on Norfolk Island, apples are something of an enigma! But maybe tinned apples would work too - though it would make for expensive apple leather.
    I haven't stopped to say hello before...but I have visited here a few times now and I've meaning to say how much I adore your blog. You have so many followers, and probably don't need any more...but I just HAD to sign up:)xx

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  11. This looks wonderful, will certainly be giving this a go!

    Helenxx

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  12. This looks and sounds so delicious, Kate. On a cold wintry day, dehydrating some sweet apples in the oven sounds like a plan. Thanks for the recipe.
    Wish I was close enough that I could buy your apples as well!
    xx

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  13. That looks SOOOO delicious! I used to love fruit leathers as a kid... and I'm pretty sure they had a whole boat load of nasties in them. Next time we stock up on good apples I'll give this a try, thanks for sharing :)

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  14. Oh I have to try this Kate! Thanks so much for the how-to.

    Xx

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  15. Lovely! I remember how my gran used to make it with apricots - left it to dry in the sun. I have her recipe as well, maybe I should try it come summertime.

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  16. looks totally delicious, I'll have to try this! PS Love the Love in the love photo and I dont mean the words, your husband totally adores you!

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  17. ¡Parece tan delicioso! Delicioso, organico y hecho en casa ... que afortunados que sois de poder llevar una vida tan autentica... es un gran regalo poder crear la comida desde productos naturales sin quimica ... y saberlo valorar , gracias por compartirlo y un cariñoso saludo desde España.

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  18. Brilliant my freezer soon gets full of apples, I do chutney, wine, stewed pots for the winter but this is a totally new way for me. Jo x

    http://joeveryday19.blogspot.co.uk/

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  19. I've been meaning to do this for ages. We don't have an abundance of fruit lying around but we do get a few apples and hopefully some rhubarb this year. Thanks for sharing!

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  20. This looks fantastic, and would be great for the lunch boxes! Will have to get onto it with my big kinder boy when he gets home today :)

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  21. Well that looks pretty good to me! As Amy said, what a great lunch box idea. I always love learning new ideas to make the (one day) harvest go further. Yes, when the 30 odd trees we have finally start producing!

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  22. Yum! I've seen a few people making fruit leather but they all had dehydrators. Thank you for sharing this method. My daughter is only 8 months but I'm sure she will love this when she's older.

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  23. Fruit leather is so yummy! I made mango leather a while ago, deeeeelish! When I was little, my mom used to cut apples into small cubes, and put them in the microwave with some cinnamon and sugar.. mmm!

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  24. We make these (and add other fruit like blackberries to ring the changes) and they're also good with cheese but I hadn't thought of cutting them into cereals - will try that with my muesli. They last for ages; one batch somehow ended up hidden on the back of the shelf and we ate them just before we made some more the following year and they still tasted good.

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  25. Yum, we've made plain dried apples a few times, and my only complaint would be that they seem to get inhaled, so tasty. Our kids have terrible teeth and the dentist advised against dried fruit and fruit leathers. Such a shame as they make suc delicious snacks.

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  27. Oh golly. YUM YUM. The only fruit we have in oversupply here is citrus, no one eats the grapefruit... hmmmm- don't think it'd quite work will it. Will have to enjoy the thought of your apple leather. And wish one day that I will be sharing it in your home with you.
    Also - I love that you said to reuse the baking paper for the next batch. I always keep reusing my baking paper until it's so stained and torn and no longer usable. And often I forget that other people don't live like that. (We never buy zip lock bags, but we save any that come in the few packaged products we buy to wash and reuse).
    Happy Weekend to you. It's raining here. And we finally got some more guttering running into our water tank.
    xxxx

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  28. Ooooo, this sounds fabulous! I am sure my girls would inhale them too. I am so trying this, thanks for sharing :) Cat xox

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  29. this is so funny but I'm looking at putting an AGA into my kitchen then I discovered I could buy an ESSE from Melbourne and I start googling and find your blog when I google and then when I'm on youtube I find your youtube video with the store I want to get the esse from! looks like you love your oven, I'm just tossing up whether I go the long but cheaper route of bringing in an AGA or pay more and get the local warranty for the esse here. Decisions, decisions but I had to tell you how funny it was when your blog came up on my search! I was like, I know that blog........

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Kate XX

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