Fruit Roll-Ups, My Way

When I was little I would climb any mountain and eagerly looked forward to the end of just about any hike if my mom's fruit leather was promised as the celebratory treat. We had a few apple trees growing up, and every summer my mom would make tons of applesauce and transform some into the coveted fruit leather. Once we moved into town, and away from the apple trees, we began making apricot fruit leather instead, with the surplus from the tree that hung over the deck at her new dental office.

Now that I have a family of my own, I make the sweet, healthy snacks too, only I use whatever fruit I can possibly get my hands on. My children don't get the candy-like fruit roll-ups sold in the grocery store. Come winter they usually find one of my rolled up fruit leather chunks inside their lunchboxes instead of the mealy "fresh" fruit available in the produce section, and when I have a craving for something sweet I have been known to grab one as well.

I use a food dehydrator to dry fruit slices, leathers, and various other items, but you can also use your oven on the lowest setting and a piece of parchment. Just place whatever fruit you're working with into a blender, puree, spread evenly on the sheet, and dry until leathery (I don't even remove skins). So easy!

Some of the flavors I make are:

~apple(sauce)
~apricot
~apricot-mango
~strawberry-rhubarb (using cooked, sweetened rhubarb)
~strawberry-banana
~cherry
~cherry berry blend
~pear
~blackberry-pear
~fruit salad (Whatever you can find, pureed . Today I used peaches, pears, green grapes, and strawberries)
~peach-raspberry

After the leather has dried, I cut it into rectangles, roll it up, and place a piece of plastic wrap over each piece. I keep it in a labeled zip top baggie in the freezer to discourage people (ahem, MYSELF) from eating it, and then pull out a variety to keep in the pantry when there's a lack of fresh fruit.