Fruit leather is one of the easiest ways you can use leftover fruits, or take advantage of abundant fruit crops to create tasty and healthy stacks for your family without the added sugars and chemicals from most store bought varieties.
No sugar is needed in most recipes. Fruit is generally sweet enough on it’s own. You just need to puree it completely smooth! Add a little touch of honey if it’s too tart!
Diabetics can eat fruit leathers as part of their diets (be sure to use a no sugar added recipe). Aspteratame can lose its sweetness in the drying process. Use your normal fruit exchange to keep track of dietary sugars.
Tips for dehydrating fruit leather
- Make sure top is dull (not shiny) and does not indent. The object is not to cook the leather, but dry it.
- Use any combination of fruit that sounds good to you.
- Spread out the mixture to be thin, but not so thin you can see through it to your parchment paper or silicon sheet. You don’t have to cover your whole space, either.
- A pizza cutter is the best to cut the leather. If your leather sticks to it a lot, you might want to dry a little longer.
- Make sure to use parchment paper to ‘roll them up’ and keep them separated.
- Fruit leather/ roll ups are good for short term stoarage, but don’t expect to use them for long-term storage.
- You can use fresh, frozen or canned fruit.
- Use a bit of lemon juice to help light-colored fruits from turning.
- If your mixture is too thin, add some banana or a tablespoon of ground chia or flax seed to help thicken
- Spice it up! Use spices and extracts to flavor your leathers. Just use sparingly because flavors intensify as you go. 1/16 to 1/8 tsp. to start with until you’re comfortable with the taste.
- If you don’t have a silicone mat to do your leathers on, use unbleached parchment paper instead.
- You can use an oven set at the lowest temperature it can go, and leave the door cracked or propped open with a wooden spoon.
- Use local honey instead of sugar for longer storage as honey doesn’t crystallize
- Fruit leathers can be stored for 1 month fresh or up to 1 year in the freezer. This is general, your mileage may vary.
- Use applesauce as an extender if your blend is too thick. It helps reduce tartness.
- Dry fruits at 130-140F in your dehydrator for 6-8 hours, and in the oven on your lowest temp with the door propped open with a wooden spoon. Check both after about 4 hours to make sure you don’t over dry.
- Use cookie cutters to make fun shapes for the littles!
- Add nuts, seeds or coconut flakes to bring a fun texture to your leather.
Fruit leather recipes you will love!
Even if a recipe calls for sugar, you can leave it out. Just sweeten your puree to taste – use local, organic honey to sweeten if necessary!
Plum Fruit Leather
Plum jelly is my favorite…and these plum fruit leather rollups are pure heaven to me!
Pumpkin and Apple Fruit Leather
With a mixture of pumpkin puree (you can use fresh or canned), apple sauce, pumpkin pie spice and a sweet surprise, this pumpkin and apple sauce combination is perfect for fall, but can be done year round.
Pineapple Fruit Leather
This pineapple fruit rollup is super easy because it is a single ingredient!
Strawberry Lemonade Fruit Leather
One of our favorite summer drinks is strawberry lemonade — imagine the awesomeness captured in a fruit leather!
Peach Raspberry Fruit Leather
A perfect summer combination with peaches and raspberries!
Blueberry Banana Fruit Leather
When I was growing up, a friend’s mom made a blueberry banana pie that was to die for. While not as sweet, this blueberry banana combination comes pretty close to my childhood memory!
Sneaky Green Apple Fruit Leather
Yes!! You can sneak veggies into your fruit leather rollups! Since it’s basically just a puree…sneak in some spinach or even beets (for red colors) to add some color, nutrition and flavor!
Yogurt Raspberry Fruit Leather
Not only can you sneak hidden veggies into your fruit leathers, you can add protein! This yogurt and raspberry fruit leather is a creamy combination that adds an extra nutritional punch!
Sweet Potato and Apple Fruit Leather
Now this sounds amazing! Sweet pototo and apple rollups for the fall?! You bet!!
Tomato Peach Strawberry Grape Fruit Roll-ups
While botanically a fruit, in the US, tomatoes are legally a vegetable — so this tomato grape strawberry and peach roll up combination is a great way to sneak in more veggies!
Pear and Vanilla Fruit Leather
This striking combination of pear and vanilla is a little more refined (not that kids won’t love it!) and just harkens to a classy French restaurant dessert.
Rainbow Fruit Leather
How is this for making dehydrated fruit puree tasty and fun to look at!? Rainbow rollups can be made of any combination of fruits (and veggies!)
With lacto-fermenting and probiotics all the rage, these lacto-fermented rollups are sure to take your snacking to the next nutritional level.
Fruit Leather Lollies
And who says you only have to do a rollup?! This ingenious idea of fruit snack lollipops is great for parties, too! Just use a lollipop craft stick and pour on a dollop of pureed fruit!
Other good fruit leather resources:
- Chocolate Banana Nut
- What to do if you’ve dried your fruit leather too long (and an optional way of rolling and cutting!)
- 5 Ways to Get Crafty with Fruit Leather – and the rice krispie treat/fruit leather sushi looks awesome!
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Thank you for putting this together! I plan on trying the pumpkin apple fruit leather.