Preparation

• Preparing fruit leather for drying is simple. Just blend whatever combination of fruit, spice and sweetener you prefer. Most fruits can just be washed (peeled if necessary) and blended to a thick puree. For berries or other fruits with lots of seeds, you may need to use a food mill or sieve to remove the seeds prior to blending.

Drying

• Fruit leather is easiest and most efficiently dried in a food dehydrator. Most dehydrators come with specialized trays for drying fruit leather, but in the absence of fruit leather trays, a piece of parchment can be used on top of a regular tray. Parchment can also be used on a cookie sheet or other oven-safe dish for drying fruit leather in a low-heat oven.

Tips

• Oven drying can take up to 24 hours, and food dehydrators may take as long as eight or 12 hours. Test fruit leather dryness by pressing the leather. It should be sticky and pliable, but your finger should not leave an indentation. Be sure leather is dry before storing or it will not keep.

  When using parchment paper under fruit leather, leave a quarter of an inch sticking out past the edge of the leather so that it is easy to remove from the drying tray and, subsequently, to remove leather from the parchment.

  Use honey or corn syrup as a sweetener, but stay away from granulated sugars, which can harden during drying and give your fruit leather a grainy texture.

Warnings

• If oven drying, it is best to leave the oven door cracked to increase circulation of air, but this is not a safe technique in households with pets or children.