Last year I went a little overboard on making applesauce...especially when you consider that we are not big applesauce eaters! What in the world would I do with it all? I gave some away, I made some fruit leathers, and turned some into apple butter. Still, nearly a year later, I found a I still had a bunch of quarts and pints of applesauce leftover. So I made more fruit leathers!
Fruit leathers are so easy to make, but the timing isn't always easy. With the American Harvest tray set I have, I find it takes 12-13 hours to make 12 trays of them. And then, throughout the day, I find I need to rotate the trays, as the top trays are closer to the motor/fan. So, every hour or so, I simply take the top tray and move it to the bottom.
To make the leathers, simply place scoopfuls of applesauce (or other fruit sauces) onto the solid fruit roll sheets that are sold as accessories for this dehydrator. Get the sauce as smooth as possible, as thick spots will take longer to dry. (And, try to keep all of the sauce inside the fruit roll sheets. A little attention to detail early on
will expedite the cleaning process!) Place the sheet inside a tray, and start stacking them!How do you know when they are done? Keep going until there aren't any sticky spots/lumps of sauce/moisture on the tray. Once they're done (and some trays will be done before the others) carefully peel the fruit off the tray, roll up, and cut. I cut them into three pieces because that makes them last a bit longer!
2 comments:
Wow, I never knew you could do that at home, I have never seen that sort of contraption. Very interesting, those leathers look delicious!
They're very yummy too! I plan on making a lot more applesauce this fall so we can have the fruit leathers throughout the year. They're great when you want a quick/sweet/healthy snack.
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