Homemade Fruit Roll Ups
I love fruit leather, dried fruit, fruit rolls-ups, and things of that sort. My kids like them too. So whenever I have some overripe fruit that no one is going to eat, I puree it and make homemade fruit roll ups. The good thing is that you can make these with just about any kind of fruit or any combinations of fruit. My favorite is mango. This is really a method, and not an exact recipe, so feel free to try making these with any fruit you like. I usually try to make 2 batches at a time since they get eaten so quickly (and to make better use of the oven while it is on).
Ingredients:
about 3 cups chopped fruit
2 Tbsp honey or sugar (more or less depending on the sweetness of your fruit)
juice of a lime (or 1/2 lemon)
Directions:
Wash, peel and chop your fruit of choice. I used two mangoes for my fruit roll ups.
Add the honey (or sugar) to your fruit, and the lime or lemon juice.
Place in a food processor (or blender).
Blend until the mixture is pureed. You may need to add a little water or more lime/lemon juice to thin out the mixture IF it is super thick. You want to be able to spread it on a baking sheet.
Preheat oven to lowest setting - usually 170 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with a silpat (or plastic wrap - don't worry, your oven won't be hot enough to melt the plastic). The girls at Our Best Bites say NOT to use parchment paper or foil so I have only used my silpat (or other silicone baking mat).
Pour your fruit puree onto the lined baking sheet.
Spread with an offset spatula just to the edges, but not quite.
You want to spread as evenly as possible, and it should only be about 1/8 inch thick. Just do your best. Mine never looks perfect, but it always tastes great :)
Put in oven (I also prop my oven door slightly open with a wooden spoon just like when I make beef jerky. This helps keep the oven at the lowest possible temperature. You want the fruit to dry out, not cook). It will take about 6-8 hours to dry out the fruit. If your edges are thinner and dry out faster, that's okay. You can brush them with a little water using a pastry brush to keep them from over drying while the middle dries out. You want to let this go until you can carefully peel the fruit away from the silpat (baking mat) without any sticking to the baking mat. Just keep checking it after about 5 hours.
Once it is completely done, cut a piece of wax paper (or parchment paper) the same size as your pan. Peel the fruit off the baking mat and place on the paper.
Cut the fruit and the paper together into long (or short) strips.
We did ours the long length of the pan, but sometimes we do it the short way to make more strips.
Roll up the fruit and paper together, as tightly as possible.
Use a little piece of tape at the end to keep the fruit rolled up.
Continue until all the strips are rolled up and place in a jar, or other container of your choice. These will last a few weeks, but they seriously are so good they never last more than a day in our house.
My kids love these. They are yummy, fun to eat, and healthier than the ones you buy.
We have made plenty of mango fruit roll ups, but we also love making mixed berry and trying all sorts of combinations of what fruit we have in the house. These do take time to make, but most of it is inactive while they are drying in the oven. Give it a try and tell me what fruits you and your family love most!
How cool! My sister's girls love that fruit leather from Costco...totally passing this along! :)
ReplyDeleteThat looks super easy. What a good idea!
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