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Fruit Leather

Fruit leather! Apple leather – rhubarb leather – any kind of fruit leather. Mix it up. Apple pear. Rhubarb raspberry. Plum! Whatever you’ve got on hand that needs to be used up, turn it into a delicious, nutritious snack to grab all winter long.

Rhubarb-raspberry-cranberry leather. Adding cranberries to fruit sauce makes the colour gorgeous! Apple leather behind it. Apple sauce for leather is so dependable in the late summer because they’re usually so plentiful. Its wonderful to use by itself, or as a base with pears, plums, rhubarb, berries, or whatever you might have on hand.

I first learned about Fruit Leather when my oldest was just a baby. I never tried it or even saw it, just read about it. In a library book. I loved the idea of it, and that very week, made some of my own, using our oven. I dried it at the lowest temperature I could get on my oven, and was hooked from that day on. Over time, I’ve progressed to the convenience of the counter top dehydrator I use today, but seriously, one doesn’t need a dehydrator. This is something people have made for many many years before dehydrators made everything easy

When you have access to your own fruit trees or a friend’s, you often have a lot of fruit that needs to be used or preserved – RIGHT NOW. We wait all summer long for fruits to ripen, and then when they do, every hour counts as we eat, juice, can, freeze, dehydrate, make jams or jellies, flavour vinegars, pickle, ferment, bake, and do anything else we can think of to continue to enjoy them for months to come.

It is a fun goal of mine to make valuable use of everything the Lord has blessed me with, or to pass it on to someone else who will, but just because I said it was a ‘fun’ goal, doesn’t mean its not without a lotta work. Usually it means many hours of hard work. Fruit leather is one of those results. It’s where excess fruit goes to find purpose and meaning to its existence. Fruit leather isn’t prejudiced against fruit that isn’t pretty enough to make it to the produce department, or the glass canning jars. Perhaps it wasn’t the ‘prettiest’ peach in the box, or perhaps the apples hit the ground and receive bruises, fruit leather is non-discriminatory.

Taking advantage of fruit that would otherwise go to waste.
Apple pie, apple crisp, apple muffins, apple juice, apple jelly, apple sauce, apple butter, apple leather, . . . . . Apple is the base for so many late summer edibles, and the perfect fruit to preserve for all winter long.

In fact, sometimes it even takes biproducts from other projects and makes them valuable again. For instance, apple pulp left over from steam juicing, can be strained to separate the apple sauce. And apple sauce makes wonderful fruit leather all by itself, and a beautiful base for many other mixes.

I think its impossible to have an exact recipe when you’re true the ‘spirit of fruit leather’. When you are using excess, you just don’t measure in ounces or cups. So the ‘recipe’ below is only a guideline to begin with. You can vary it depending on whatever happens to be in season and accessible.

I like to at least heat the fruit through for a few minutes to arrest any alteration in colour or flavour, and also to kill any bacteria. Lightly simmering the fruit, softens it and makes it easier to smooth. Either mash the softened fruit with a potato masher, or puree it in a blender, of half and half to have a more interesting texture.

Sour cherries make amazing fruit leather, alone or in combination with other fruits. They are also terrific dehydrated by themselves. Pitted of course.

Often times a combination of fruits, using the apple sauce first, opens up to a whole new world of textures and flavours. Starting with a base of apple sauce, consider these variations:
* apple sauce – straight, all by itself, only sweetened if necessary, and nothing else
* apple sauce with pear sauce mashed, skins removed, (trust me on this, pear skins when really ripe are tough and unpleasant). If you puree it, then you can leave the skins on.
* apple berry blend – your choice. Whatever’s in season. I love using raspberries,
* apple plum blend
* apple peach blend
* apple pie – apples with cinnamon for apple-pie fruit leather
* apple grape – puree the grapes if they have seed in them.


* Sour cherries. Pureed or mashed for added texture, sweetened to taste. By themselves, or in combination with other fruits, always a winner.
* Plums. In my climate, there are many varieties of plums that grow well. And they’re not only delicious to eat straight off the tree, but great for canning, dehydrating, making into jams or plum sauce, and of course fruit leather alone or in combination with other fruits. Their sweetness is the perfect companion to the tartness of rhubarb.
* Peaches – alone, or mixed with anything you like are always an all time favourite of mine. However, peaches don’t grow in my climate so I always have to buy them, and mashing up fruit I purchased hurts my feelings. So the only time I would ever make peach jam or peach leather is when I got a steal of a deal, or they got away from me, past their prime, and I would otherwise lose them. That’s what makes fruit leather so great – it prevents waste.
* Apricots. I don’t often have a lotta fresh apricots that I wouldn’t mind cooking up. Kinda in the same category as peaches. But in the rare instance that I have had access to some, I’d make a TON of apricot leather. I LOVE the flavour and unique ‘tart sweetness’ of apricots, and they’re a powerhouse of nutrition.

alone, or in combination with the tartness of rhubarb, the beautiful colour and natural sweetness of plums is a perfect choice for fruit leather

*Be brave and experiment. If it sounds good, and it tastes good together, then it might be the perfect marriage. Its all about making use of what you have on hand.

* Rhubarb is the perfect base for fruit leather. Beautifully tart, it is great alone, or mixed with berries or apple sauce. And its ever-plentiful, hardy in our climate. That’s hard to beat. If I’m looking for a beautiful red colour, I’ll add frozen or freeze dried cranberries. Sweeten only to taste, being careful not to loose the tartness that sets rhubarb apart.

Additional ingredients and what they’re used for:

Sugar or other sweetener: to personal taste. I am not normally a white sugar girl, but for fruit leather I find it is preferable to other sweeteners like stevia or brown sugars. Besides, sugar has preservative benefits too. Just be responsible with ‘how much’. Honey is great, but it adds its unique flavour to the fruit sauce, so make sure you like that flavour blend before you decide to use it.

rhubarb, the northern gardener’s best friend

Water or other liquid: to give it enough liquid to steam itself. Just enough, not too much. Remember, you’re dehydrating this. The more liquid to add, the more you need to dry out.

Lemon juice: to retain vibrant colour, and to add some tartness. I love the taste of lemon, and the tartness of it. It is perfect in so many combinations, especially those where flavours are being combined.

Recipe (remember there are no real, hard defined measurements). The recipe below is ONLY A GUIDE. I’m gonna use RHUBARB as my example. You can personally adjust for any other fruit, according to your own tastes and preferences.

Rhubarb Leather

1. freshly picked rhubarb, washed, chopped, and lightly simmered over low heat, till its soft enough to mash. Use water only to keep it from scorching (maybe 1/2 cup for every 4 cups of fruit), and keep the heat low.
2. sprinkle sugar over top to taste.
3. add enough lemon juice to keep colours vibrant. Could be a couple of tablespoons to a full cup – depending on how big your pot of rhubarb is. Lemon juice will keep the integrity of the colour, and will add a little zing to your flavour, but is NOT necessary.
4. mash cooked rhubarb with a potato masher to a nice consistency. I prefer this to puree’ing in the blender, because the texture is more interesting.
5. If you feel like the colour is lacking, add some red raspberries if you have them.
6. For colour: I keep on hand a good supply of frozen and/or freeze dried cranberries for the purpose of adding a gorgeous stable RED colour to my red jams and even fruit leathers. If you want your rhubarb a nicer, pinker to reddish colour, add a cup or two cranberries, and simmer with rhubarb till tender. Mash or puree (your choice), to incorporate well.

Now to dry:
If you have a dehydrator, that’s my preference. If you do not, use the oven on VERY low, as low as your oven will allow. I’ll start with my first experience which was an oven.

OVEN –
You need a flat surface, like a cookie sheet. Spread the sheet with a layer of plastic wrap, like saran wrap (NOT waxed paper – you’ll be sorry), or parchment paper. The saran wrap likes to stick together and its very annoying to lay it flat, but do it anyway. If you rush the job, you’ll only get more frustrated. If you have a flat silicone sheet, all the better. Its reusable and lays flat. Pour your prepared fruit sauce over top of your lined surface, and gently spread it out with the back of a spoon. Spread to about an inch from the edges. How thin? Just thick enough that you cannot see through it, about 1/8-1/4 inch.

Place in a warm oven that is set to the lowest temperature you can – which will probably be between 150-200 degrees. You’re wanting to dry the fruit sauce for as long as it takes to become a leathery, slightly tacky finished product. There are so many variables that will determine how long that should take. Check every hour or two, moving the pan slightly to promote even heat distribution. Be patient. You can’t rush this stage. My guess is anywhere from 9-12 hours. Personally, I don’t recommend leaving it over night because you’re not able to monitor sufficiently. Turn the oven off when you go to bed, and start the process over again in the morning. It doesn’t have to be babysat, just don’t leave it unattended for too many hours.

When you see that it is drying, gently touch it to see how soft or tacky it is. You don’t want any soft spots. When you think that its almost done, I recommend peeling it off the plastic, parchment or silicone sheet and flipping it upside down on the oven rack itself, for another hour or so. This lets air get all around it, and allows it to more evenly dry.

HOMEMADE DEHYDRATOR –
In the height of my dehydrating days, when I had all the kids at home, Dan built me a large wooden dehydrator, almost as big as our freezer. He and our good friend Kevin Lamont worked together, as Kevin was also building one for his wife Diana. They heated them with in-car heaters which worked beautifully, moving just enough air and at a very suitable temperature. I used that dehydrator for many years, drying mostly fruits, fruit leather and herbs, but also experimenting with various vegetables. It was also a good place to make yogurt. By the time we moved to our present house, I was running our Bookstore fulltime and very busy in the early fall, getting ready for Christmas. I dehydrated less, and couldn’t justify the large floor space that my faithful dehydrator took. We found it another happy home, and moved on.

On a screened frame, lay out your plastic wrap, or parchment and pour your sauce over top spreading it with the back of a spoon. The nice thing about a big dehydrator is that you can do LOTS of fruit leather at one time. Check the progress every few hours, rotating racks to keep the heat and air more evenly distributed. My estimate is probably a good 12 – 24 hours, but again – so many variables. How full is the dehydrator? How wet and thick was your sauce? Heat and air flow? Be patient and don’t rush it. Just like with the oven, when you think its pretty much done, peel off the plastic wrap and flip it upside down on the screen for the last hour or so.

COUNTER TOP DEHYDRATOR –
You can have as few as two or three racks in a counter top dehydrator, or as many as you want. That means you can easily dehydrate a small batch, or a huge batch of whatever you’re doing, and the foot print stays the same. Nice. In August or September, my dehydrator lives in my kitchen, and is often running for days at a time. I have about a dozen racks so I often dehydrate more than one type of food at a time, being careful to monitor the different time requirements. *hint: don’t put fruit and herbs in the drier at the same time unless you want oregano tinted fruit leather. But herbs and zucchini in the dehydrator at the same time are good companions.

There are some beautiful counter top dehydrators nowadays, that are easy to use, easy to regulate temperature, and easy to keep clean. Those are winning features in my books. You can also purchase plastic fruit-leather liners and screens for berries and herbs. I love that flexibility. I have six or eight reusable fruit leather liners, perfect for my use this time of year. Using the same method, I simply pour my sauce onto the liner, spreading out with the back of a spoon to the desired thickness.

fold or roll the finished fruit leather and store in an airtight bag or container

I can expect it to take about 24 hours, but again so many variables. How many racks? How wet is the sauce? And how thickly did I spread it out? Even, how humid is the air? If I put the fruit sauce into the dehydrator at night, I have no problem going to sleep with it on, but if I start the process in the morning, I wouldn’t risk it leaving it unattended overnight. I’d turn the dehydrator off when I went to bed, and start it again the next morning, so that I can keep an eye on the progress. As with the other two methods, when the leather is almost ready in my opinion, I’ll peel it from the liner and return to the rack upside down, for another hour or two or three, finishing the drying process to my satisfaction.
*hint: when peeling the fruit leather from the plastic liner, it may be a little tricky. I use a firm plastic spatula to gently scrape the edges to get a good start.

Whichever method you use, the results will be very similar.

To store:

Do a final touch test to ensure the leather is dry enough – no sticky spots.
Fold or roll up, and place in an airtight bag or container.
Store in your pantry to have handy for regular use. Some store it in the fridge or freezer, but I’ve never done that. For one, my space is limited. And I am much more likely to lose it, and forget about it in the bottom of my freezer. LOL

packed away to store in the pantry within reach of little grandkid hands

When properly dried and package, you can expect your fruit leather to be optimum in your pantry for about a year. Preservation depends on their low moisture content of less than 25%, the natural acidity of the fruit and the sugar content. Don’t push it too long past a year though. It may appear the same, but the nutritional value will have been steadily diminishing from the time you made it. Though dehydrating may slow down the nutritional loss, it cannot prevent it. (Not even in the freezer)

I’ve known lots of people who cut their fruit leather into convenient strips to store. I think that’s great; I’ve just never done it. Mine is usually stored in the original size, and we just rip a piece off when we eat it.

The principle of food storage is sound and I wholely subscribe to it. I live by it. BUT the rule is simple: store what you eat, and eat what you store. Keeping your food storage rotated, means keeping it fresh, and that means keeping it nutritionally sound, and that should be important to us. So EAT the fruit leather you make. Give it to the kids as a healthy snack. Send it in their lunches. Bring it in the car for road trips. Don’t protect it in your pantry like some kind of rare treasure you’ll only bring to the light during some future zombie apocalypse. This is REAL life. And it tastes GOOD.

I hope this is of help to you. If you have yet to try your hand at making your own fruit leather, I really hope you’ll give it a try. You don’t need any special tools to begin, just an oven. The first time I made it (all those many years ago), I was excited to tell my sister about my new discovery. She asked how she’d be able to tell it was done, and I told her “when its dry, you just have to be your own judge”. She made it and then phoned and complained to me that it was terrible. It was like shoe leather. Who wanted to eat that? LOL *hint: stop drying it before it gets to the point of being so dry its like shoe leather. But its an experiment. You’re never gonna know till you try it yourself.

Have fun. I’d love to hear your experiences, your favourite ways of making fruit leather, and your favourite combinations.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle

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Late summer days should smell of hot apple juice

We had three apple trees here when my kids were home, and although the apples weren’t great for eating, they made terrific apple sauce, apple juice, apple leather, and apple butter. What we found most useful for our family in those days, was apple juice. The rich, homey smell of apples juicing on the stove was a familiar fragrance that said “Welcome home” on those early days of school in September.

Luke was in elementary school and I worked full time in our family Bookstore. Our apples were generally ready the last week of August. Once we picked them it became a race against time to get them all put up before they spoiled. In the final weeks of summer of ‘that’ year, I was particularly busy at the store. And with everyone busy getting back to school and routine, and homework, the start of seminary, music lessons, and everything else that goes on in a growing family, . . . . . . well, the timing just wasn’t great to take care of a couple hundred pounds of apples. But you gotta do what you gotta do during harvest season right? So we picked the apples as a family on the only day we had all hands on deck, and loaded them into 5 gallon buckets to wait their turn at the juicer. The kitchen and back porch were lined with apple buckets, while we got the steam juicer, canner and jars ready to begin the next phase of our life – a project that once started, we knew we’d be fully committed to till it was finished.

The job fell to Luke and I most of the time. Don’t ask me why. Probably because it mattered to me the most and Luke was still young enough to enjoy hanging out with me. But that might be another story for another time.

We had a system. When we got up in the morning, we’d empty the steamer basket into the backyard compost bin. Then we’d pour off the juice, turn the stove on and refill the basket with stemmed apples cut in half, ensure the water reservoir had enough in it to not boil dry, make sure the flame wasn’t too high, and then go eat breakfast and get Luke off to school. The apples continued to steam over boiling water while I got ready for work. We had already washed and sterilized plenty of 1-quart and 2-quart jars ready to fill, and the canner stood by ready to can the juice. We were pros at this. All should have gone slick as a wick – like it normally did. But this time, during those critical days, I never seemed to find the time in the evening to actually process the quarts of juice in the canner! It didn’t take long before they filled the fridge and then the counter tops, waiting for me to have time to finish the job. Ideally, if I had had even a few days in a row to devote to the project, I could have poured the hot juice directly from the juicer into sterile jars, affix hot sterile lids, and put them into the hot canner immediately. Before new jars of juice were ready to put into the canner, the processed ones would be out and sitting on a clean tea towel to cool. It should have been that easy. And it should have been relatively quick. Two or three days at most. But that week I was just so busy at the store, I simply couldn’t find an extra hour to finish the job. Fruit once harvested however, doesn’t wait. It has no sympathy and no ability to slow down time. And fruit flies? … … Well, lets just agree that fruit flies are a hateful part of summer harvesting.

So we kept it up, Luke and I. Because it seemed like the only thing to do. I would strain off whatever juice we extracted from the morning, then turn the stove off on my way out the door for work.   When Luke got home from school, his job was to take the basket of spent apples out to the compost, dump it and start filling it up again by cutting the apples in half, and removing the stems. Then he’d turn the stove on and begin the water boiling, draining off whatever juice might have accumulated during the day.  After I got home we just continued the process right into the night amidst dinner and homework and our usual routines, finishing off as many steamer baskets of apples as we could, pouring off as much juice as we produced, and taking the pulp out to the compost heap in the backyard to the delight of late summer wasps and hornets. We could get a few more batches done until about midnight, when I’d pour off the last of the juice, turn the stove off and go to bed. In the morning we’d start the whole process over again. The cycle of our days during apple harvest was pretty predictable. Except for the not-getting-them-processed in the canner part. That part was new.

You can imagine that we had begun accumulating a fair number of jars of juice.  The fact that they needed to be processed in the canner began to weigh heavily on my mind, but I simply. could. not. find. the time! “Tomorrow I would.” Always tomorrow.  Well the natural circle of life is a real thing, and it cannot be stopped or even slowed down in a summer kitchen.  One day I noticed a few jars on the back counter had begun to foam. Urgency was added to the heavy weight, but then – the clock and I have never been friends. 

It seemed that with every hour that went by, the juice in some jars was not only foaming at the top, but carbonating. I though didn’t know what to expect from the taste, when I tested them, they were great! Even better than usual. A little ‘fizzy’, but I kinda like ‘fizzy’. I finally had to admit that the word I was looking for, was “fermenting“.   Now in a house like mine, this was not a word I wanted to say out loud but it was pretty evident to everyone what was happening under my watchful eye.  I had zero experience with this type of fermentation.  I had made pickles and sauerkraut, yogurt, sourdough bread and even kimchi, but fermented juice was in a class of its own.  I didn’t know if it could be processed in a hot water canner under the circumstances. I had no idea what to expect from a jar of juice during the fermenting process. What to do? What to do?  I determined that I couldn’t risk canning it, but after two weeks of juicing, and a whole season’s worth of apples, there was no way in this green earth I was gonna waste it.  Waste not – Want not. Right? Only one option that I could see, and that was that we needed to drink it.

Lots and lots of apple juice.  We started with the older ones, the ones at greatest risk of being lost. Apple juice for breakfast, apple juice for lunch and apple juice at the supper table. Carbonated apple juice.  We had a LOT of fizzy apple juice.  And even though we had half a dozen people living in our house, it seemed to be like Elijah’s cruse of oil.  No bottom to it.  It went on forever.  Getting more carbonated every day.   It was delicious! Luke and I loved it. We couldn’t get enough. The others?  Well they didn’t feel the same way. They simply weren’t as ‘invested’ as we were.  They hadn’t spent two weeks juicing apples so they didn’t ‘feel the feels’ when we considered the possibility of having to pour the fermenting juice down the drain. Luke and I soldiered on.

Finally, mutiny started to rear its ugly head, and I started to see cracks in the seams of our otherwise unified wholesome (non alcohol drinking) household.  Other family members began making rude comments regarding the fermentation of the ‘juice’.  They used words like ‘stillery‘, and ‘moonshine‘. Luke and I were all “Yeah whatever! This is GREAT!”  Them?  Not so eager.   As the days passed even I no longer felt that the word “juice” was appropriate, but I sure as heck wasn’t gonna use the “W” word. I had no idea exactly what apple cider was, but I decided it was a safe place between juice and wine so I started calling it apple cider.  Luke was totally supportive. 
“I love apple cider!”  he reaffirmed daily.

Dan and my other kids continued teasing but I brushed it off.  “Sour grapes!”

One day as Luke got the chilled jug of apple cider out of the fridge to set the table for dinner, seventeen year old Zack complained “This again to drink? I’m getting tired of drinking this for ever single meal. And I’m thinking we shouldn’t be drinking it anyway.” 
“Oh lighten up Zack.” I told him “This is as close to wine as you’re ever gonna get.”
“Frankly Mom,” he said as he got himself a drink of water, ” I have NEVER felt the need to get this close.” 

One by one the family dropped off till only Luke and I remained.   True appreciators of this wonderful accidental apple cider we created with the help of a little natural yeast and time. 

One afternoon my sister was in town and stopped in on her way home.  I prepared us a nice lunch, with apple cider of course.  She loved it and helped herself to more.  And then a little more. Three days later she phoned me wanting the recipe … “That was THE best apple punch I have ever had! I cannot stop thinking about it. I need your recipe.”

“Super simple.” I told her. “Nothing to it. You just make apple juice.  Leave it on the counter for a week or two till starts foaming.  Then sweeten with a little bit of sugar and leave for a few more days.  Easy Peasy. (lol)” She didn’t think it was as funny as I did.

Surprisingly, that apple ‘juice’ took longer to consume it all, than it did to create it. But eventually all good things must come to an end.  Even apple ‘cider’. And soon enough the last jar of apple cider was served.  I do believe it was only Luke and me who stayed with it right to the end.  It was a solemn moment when we shared that final glass. We had taken lots of ribbing and name calling along the way, but it was worth it.  Truly that apple cider had gotten better every day, but by Christmas it was only a memory and a funny story.  … … The following summer we had another great crop of apples and while I dreaded the work, Luke looked forward to the smell of apple juice in the house again, and our shared tradition.  “Can we make some more of that apple cider Mom?” he asked. 
“Uh, no I don’t think so Luke.  We can only ever do something like that by mistake once.  After that, …… its not a mistake anymore.  I think we had our day in the sun.”

Today my steam juicer’s second home is Luke’s house, where it continues to live a purposeful and fruitful life.  Luke says that late summer days should smell like hot, sweet apple juice and he’s determined to make sure his boys grow up with the happy memories that that slightly spicy, comfortable fragrance conjures up. The one that smells like “Welcome Home“.  

What are some of those comfy smells that bring back memories for you? You know. The ones that put a smile on your face when you think of them.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle