Sun-dried Fruit Leather

Fruit leather is one of the easiest ways you can preserve masses of fruit that ripens all at once. My Shiro plum created about 40 pounds of fruit all ripening about the same time. I ate as many as I could but there were still tons so I needed a way to preserve them. Online it looked like there were only a couple ways people were preserving plums: Canning, making jams, drying, or fruit leather. Fruit leather has become my favorite way of these methods because of its simplicity to make and its great taste. Here were the steps I followed to make some DELICIOUS fruit leather.

For a more technical look at fruit leathers here is a great link

Prepare.

Prepare fruit. Wash fruit, remove seeds, pits, stems, blemishes, etc.

For this step, I used our Shiro Plums, some strawberries, and some aging banana. You can play around with how much you put in. I keep the skins, but I prefer more of a natural sour flavor, you can always remove skins if you want sweeter fruit leather.

Puree.

2. Use a food processor or immersion blender to puree everything together.

I love the immersion blender, it saves having to do an extra dish. I just blend it right in the bowl. You could even save one more dish and put the fruit directly into the pot and use the immersion blender that way.

Cook.

3. Cook the purreed material down to remove excess moisture.

You're looking for a consistency of something like applesauce. About 20 minutes on medium-low is normally good.

Prepare trays.

4. Prepare trays with parchment paper. I like to fold the paper so that there are crisp edges. Put the undried fruit leather on the parchment paper.

You're looking to spread this evenly and keep it sort of thin. I love to use a ladle for this part because it allows you to pour consistent portions on your paper.

I also spread a little Forritos Chilitos (Mexican chili-sugar) on the top before setting out to dry.

Dry.

5. To dry you can set it out in the sun for 2 sunny days. I like this method best because it is free and has dried the most evenly. Be sure to have some way to keep the bugs away so you don't have some extra protein sneak into your snack!

If you don't want to dry outside you can use a food dehydrator or in your oven at the lowest setting. Be sure to check regularly if you are using the oven so as not to burn your leather.

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