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Natural strawberry fruit leather is a big improvement over the packaged version! Make it in the oven or dehydrator.
It’s strawberry-palooza time! Thanks to a great price at the roadside fruit stand, this weekend I made strawberry jam, strawberry pancake syrup, and strawberry fruit roll-ups.
This homemade strawberry fruit leather recipe is so easy, you won’t believe it. The idea and technique come from the fantastic book, Healthy Snacks to Go. Remember those delicious homemade granola bars? Yep, same book!
Tools Used to Make Homemade Fruit Leather Recipe
Blender: my favorite tool for quick and perfectly blended and smooth strawberries
Nesco dehydrator: it dries food at low temperatures, helping preserve the enyzmes from the fruit and honey
Homemade Fruit Leather Recipe
Ingredients:
Blender full of strawberries, washed and hulls trimmed (about 4 cups)
1 tablespoon raw honey (optional)
Plop the strawberries in the blender and add the honey. Don’t add any water! Just smoosh the berries down a bit so they’ll engage with the blades.
Give extra strawberries to your supervisor to flavor test while you’re working.
Blend the berries until they become a smooth liquid.
Now you’re ready to go! Either pour the liquid onto a Silpat and bake at 200 F for about 3 hours, or use a dehydrator. I tested out my sister-in-law’s Nesco American Harvest machine for this. Because it dries food at very low temperatures, it preserves the enzymes of the fruit and raw honey.
Pour a layer about 1/4 inch thick on the fruit leather tray. Set the dehydrator to 135 F and let ‘er rip.
Since it’s cooking at such a low temp, it will take a while to be ready. I checked it after 3 hours. See the cracks near my finger? It’s drying, but isn’t ready yet. You can tell because touching it leaves pokey-finger-dents (that’s a technical term).
After 6 hours, it was finally ready. It peeled up in a nice, even sheet and sliced it into ribbons with a pizza cutter. They kind of look like strawberry roses!
Oh, and let me show you something. This is right from General Mills’ website.
Hey, Betty! Betty Crocker! You forgot the strawberries.
Want more easy, super-healthy snack recipes? Check out the expanded second edition of Healthy Snacks to Go. This is an 85-page book full of tips and recipes for 45 different snacks like:
- 15 different “Larabar” recipes
- Crispy Roasted Chickpeas
- Peanut Butter Kisses
- and of course, granola bars and fruit roll-ups.
Give it a try—we’ve loved every recipe we’ve made from it!
Homemade Fruit Leather
Ingredients
- 4 cups strawberries, washed and hulls trimmed
- 1 tbsp raw honey
Instructions
- Plop the strawberries in the blender and add the honey. Don’t add any water! Just smoosh the berries down a bit so they’ll engage with the blades.
- Blend the berries until they become a smooth liquid.
- Now you’re ready to go! Either pour the liquid onto a Silpat and bake at 200 F for about 3 hours, or use a dehydrator. I used a dehydrator because it dries food at very low temperatures, it preserves the enzymes of the fruit and raw honey.
- Pour a layer about 1/4 inch thick on the fruit leather tray. Set the dehydrator to 135 F and let ‘er rip.
- Since it’s cooking at such a low temp, it will take a while to be ready. I checked it after 3 hours. See the cracks near my finger? It’s drying, but isn’t ready yet. You can tell because touching it leaves pokey-finger-dents (that’s a technical term).
- After 6 hours, it was finally ready. It peeled up in a nice, even sheet and sliced it into ribbons with a pizza cutter. They kind of look like strawberry roses!
Pam a great way to do fruit leather. I would use a sheet pan with about what portions you used and covered it all with cheese cloth or one of those insect food tents. Set in the sun and wha laa may take longer to dry but certainly energy efficient.
I am now living in central Oregon and catching the sun is a bit trickier than The Sacto area but it is available. Talk about a short growing season….We have it here in Prineville.
Have you heard of Norex cleaning green? If not I would love to tell you about it. You would love it. Clean with only WATER>
I’m wondering how long of a shelf life these have?
My daughter is loving you for this recipe!!! 🙂
Thank you for linking up at Thrifty Thursday! I love your recipe and it sounds absolutely delicious and so much healthier and more affordable than buying them from the store. Your post is featured this week at our link-up, hope to see you back again!
What an amazing comparison!! Wow! I love your recipe…thanks for sharing such a useful idea…I suppose you can do this with about any fruit. I must get a mat like that, but my dehydrator is square…Hmmm
I so appreciate and am glad you are linking up your wonderful ideas! Keep ’em coming!
I was able to get silicon baking mats from amazon which are great in a square Excalibur dehydrator; just need to measure your trays and order the correct size 🙂
Ok, that settles it… I am getting a dehydrator! I have wanted one for over a year now! Love it! Thank you for sharing with us at Healthy 2Day Wednesdays!
Yea! Glad you used the dehydrator. I think I need to sample them…. Yum.
Those look so good, and so easy. What a great idea to add a bit of honey. Thanks for sharing! Popping over from Raising Arrows link up.
I am new to your blog and really love it!
It’s crazy how food labelers market items without the things that is supposed to be in it in the first place.. crazy how the FDA allows that! (false marketing huh)
This is such a simple recipe, I have been wanting to make my own fruit leather this would be great! I always thought I needed a dehydrator!
I would love for you to link this post up at Healthy 2day Wednesdays this week (up until Saturday afternoon) and other posts each week!
Who’d have though this was so easy! I’m definitely going to need to make it.