It's Strawberry season!!!! Fruit Leather

One of my favorite times of year in Southern Illinois is strawberry and blueberry season and right now we are in full swing strawberry season!  I tend to get a little crazy and get entirely too many flats of strawberries.  I act as though I will never get them again so I must buy as many as possible.  I do this with the full intention on preserving them for the winter along with eating as many as possible.  One of my kids favorite things to do with strawberries is make fruit leather.  If you have never had fruit leather it is very similar to fruit roll ups but wayyyyy better for you.  So here is the down low on how to make your very own fruit leather.

Things you need

Dehydrator

quart of strawberries (two cups)

sweetener this can be a banana, stevia, sugar or honey

Food processor or blender

First I toss the berries in a bowl with water and vinegar for a good cleaning.  Then I cut off all the leafy parts.  I toss about two cups in the food processor.  Here is the tricky part depending on size of strawberries you may only need a cup.  You wont know this until the end so I figure too much is better than enough.  If you have left overs save them in the fridge for your next batch, make a smoothie or strawberry syrup with the extras.  This particular batch of strawberries was a bit tart so I added a banana.  It was still tart so then I added some local honey.  Just add whatever until it taste the way you want it.

Then you puree it like so.








We have one of these handy dandy trays for our dehydrator.  If you do not have one of these you can put plastic rap or there is a dehydrator paper you can buy.  I have never used either of them so I'm not sure how well they work.  I recommend putting a little cooking oil on the tray to prevent sticking.  Coconut oil works great.  I forgot to do it on this batch and well picture to come for that.

Next  poor it on the try.  You want to cover the tray with a thin even layer.  The thicker it is the longer it will take and wont dehydrate as evenly.  Set you dehydrator to 130-140.  It will take anywhere from 5-10 hrs depending on thickness.  Most commonly 6-8 though.

Take note how mine stuck to tray.  Forgot the oil dang it.  A little tip, start this early in the day otherwise you will be waking up through out the night to check your fruit leather.  Yep I did that.










There you have it homemade fruit leather!  Store in a air tight container although if your house is like mine its gone in an hour so there is no point.

I had to share my excuse for no oil and why I over poured onto the tray.  I got a bit flustered.   I cleaned up most of it then had the idea to take a picture.  This here is a little bit of the remains of the disaster that happen while I was making the fruit leather.  My windows were open right above the counter and a baseball came through the screen knocking over a potted plant on the window seal.  It went all over everything and yes it most certainly went in the fruit processor.  Gotta love those boys huh :)   The kids didn't seem to mind the added dirt to their fruit leather ;)

Enjoy, Kristi