Flavors from left to right: grape, apple cinnamon, raspberry mango, banana chocolate, tropical fruit, blueberry cantaloupe, strawberry kiwi, honey vanilla peach
I just got a new kitchen toy (I LOVE kitchen toys), a dehydrator! A lot of people use dehydrators to store food that they buy in bulk or that goes out of season, but I pretty much just bought it to make beef jerky and fruit leather 🙂 I may also use it to store herbs if I grow some when it gets warmer out. I tried out making several different flavors to get a feel for how the thing worked and which types of fruits would work best. I would say it was a huge success because all the flavors tasted delicious! Some had better consistencies than others but they were all very tasty.
This is how the sheets look after they’re done dehydrating
These quantities made 1 tray for each flavor. For all the flavors except the apple cinnamon (which I poured straight from the jar) I pureed all the ingredients in my food processor until they reached a smooth consistency.
Apple cinnamon – 2 cups cinnamon applesauce
- This one had the consistency most resembling real fruit leather I used to eat as a kid. Super delicious and peeled off really easily!
Rasbperry mango – 1.5 cups fresh mango, 1 cup fresh raspberries, 1 tbs honey (because my mango wasn’t very ripe and sweet)
- Really good, the most tart of all the flavors
Honey vanilla peach – 2 cups canned peach halves (drained and rinsed), 1 tbs honey, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- Another one with really good consistency and peeled away really easily, very sweet and good flavor
Banana chocolate – 4 small ripe bananas, 2 tbs unsweetened coco powder
- good consistency, you could definitely taste the chocolate, great if you’re a fan of bananas!
Tropical fruit – 1 cup fresh pineapple, 1 cup fresh mango, 1 ripe banana
- yum! peeled easily and great texture
Blueberry cantaloupe – 2 cups cubed cantaloupe, 1 cup blueberries
- This one was a bit sticky and probably had my least favorite flavor. It was still good but I probably won’t make it again
Strawberry kiwi – 1 small package strawberries (~1.5 cups), 4 kiwis, 1 tbs honey
- delicious! a bit tart and I love the crunch of the seeds
Grape – 2 cups fresh grapes
- This one probably was the stickiest and hardest to peel off but it was one of my favorites in terms of taste
I dried all of the flavors on fruit roll sheets at 130 C for 6-9 hours until they were dry