Recently I was craving fruit rolls ups, fruit leather, fruit almost anything last week so I decided to do something about it. I'm trying to be better about eating sugar and sodium since I'm coming into the last stretch of this pregnancy and trying to avoid swelling up into the Pillsbury Dough Girl.
(Good luck to me..I know) I was tired of just eating fruit and wanted to try getting a little creative so I decided to make my own delicious, healthy, fruit leather. And mmmm it was.
Here's what I did...in brief explanation.
I went and walked around the store for a good while glancing at all the good smelling fruits around. I went with peaches, pears, strawberries, green grapes and bananas. I didn't end up using the bananas though so I'm thinking of doing a bread with those later.
To start, I washed, peeled, pitted and cored everything. The grapes I just de stemmed.
I then chopped and decided what fruits I wanted to put together. It was decided that I would make a peach-strawberry leather and a pear-grape leather. Yummmy!
After chopping I put the two mixes into separate pots and boiled them about 12-15 mins. When this was done I drained only a little of the water. I wanted to keep some to add to the blender to help make it thinner all the while keeping the natural fruit juices.
At first I tried using my KitchenAid mixer but with the peaches it didn't get all the lumps out. I would suggest using a blender on the puree setting from the start. MUCH faster.
I also added maybe a tsp of sugar to each mix to sweeten it up but try the fruit before hand because if it is already really sweet you probably don't need to add any sugar. The baking will heighten the flavor.
Next, I lined the cookie sheets with regular ceran wrap. I left about an inch on the edges to hang over and didn't fold it under. This was in case it shrunk in the oven. Which it did but not much. It's on such a low temp that you don't need to worry about it melting to your pans either :)
The recipe I looked at for an oven temp was 140 degrees. My oven's lowest setting was 200 so I just put it on warm and they were done in 6 hours. Right on schedule! I checked every hour or hour and a half just to see how they were doing.
After they were done I left them to cool for about 20-30 mins and then ate up! They peeled right off and rolled right up.
The only thing I would have done differently in this is MADE MORE!! :)
After chopping I put the two mixes into separate pots and boiled them about 12-15 mins. When this was done I drained only a little of the water. I wanted to keep some to add to the blender to help make it thinner all the while keeping the natural fruit juices.
I also added maybe a tsp of sugar to each mix to sweeten it up but try the fruit before hand because if it is already really sweet you probably don't need to add any sugar. The baking will heighten the flavor.
Next, I lined the cookie sheets with regular ceran wrap. I left about an inch on the edges to hang over and didn't fold it under. This was in case it shrunk in the oven. Which it did but not much. It's on such a low temp that you don't need to worry about it melting to your pans either :)
The recipe I looked at for an oven temp was 140 degrees. My oven's lowest setting was 200 so I just put it on warm and they were done in 6 hours. Right on schedule! I checked every hour or hour and a half just to see how they were doing.
After they were done I left them to cool for about 20-30 mins and then ate up! They peeled right off and rolled right up.
The only thing I would have done differently in this is MADE MORE!! :)
Sounds Yummy!! Aunt Diane, Mommy & Uncle Scott
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