How to Make Fruit Leather

When you have your own fruit trees (or access to someone else’s) sometimes you can feel a bit buried in fruit, whatever happens to be dropping off the trees at that time. Summer becomes a mad dash of canning, jamming and freezing, trying to preserve the bounty to enjoy throughout the year.

One thing you can do with excess fruit of the season is to make fruit leather, sort of the beef jerky of fruit. I used to love this stuff as a kid, made for a great snack and instant energy, and was easy to pack.

What follows is a general guideline to making fruit leather, no set recipe. So much of it depends on the specific fruit you are working with.

Do you have a preferred way of making fruit leather? I’m curious to know.

I imagine that not all fruit are best processed the same way, and some might work well mixed in with other things, like cherries with ground almonds for example.

I know that some people prefer to process just the raw fruit; I like cooking the fruit first to up the intensity of the flavor, and kill any bacteria that might be lurking around on the fruit.

When apple butter season starts, I may make a fruit leather batch with extra ground cloves, cinnamon and cider vinegar.

The leftover fruit mush from making a clear jelly would be great for making fruit leather (thinking of the quince jelly now).

If you have a favorite approach to fruit leather with a favorite fruit, please let us know in the comments.

How to Make Fruit Leather

Ingredients

• Fresh fruit (apricots, peaches, plums, berries, apples, pears, grapes)
• Water
• Lemon juice
• Sugar (if needed)
• Spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg (optional)

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