Do any of you make fruit leather? Any recipes?
As my "food forest" matures, I need to find more & better ways to preserve my harvest. I have a large capacity dehydrator and a cider press, so I make a lot of dried fruit and fruit juices. But I would like to try making some fruit leather.
I am specifically interested in mixing various types of fruit to make a good fruit leather. Also any "special ingredients" e.g. pectin, honey, sugar, etc.
Here is a list of what I will have ripening from now into November:
- Aronia berries (TONS)
- Apples (many varieties)
- Plums
- Cornelian cherries (several varieties)
- Grapes (TONS, many varieties)
- Sea buckthorn AKA seaberry
- Figs (many varieties)
- Hardy kiwi
Any thoughts on what fruit I should mix with what? Ratios? I know pectin helps to "firm up" the mix, so I am inclined to include Cornelian cherries in every mix.
I plan to just separate the pits, put the fruit mix in a blender, pour the mix into silicone trays, and put those on the metal trays in my dehydrator.
Here is my dehydrator: 
Here are the silicone trays I just ordered:
Nice dryer. I have a cheap plastic one that I have put to use this week. But it needs replacing so hopefully you don't mind telling me when your going to be using yours so I can see it myself. I have a change in my cellphone so the best way may be to PM me.
In exchange for some ideas I have these early cropping pears that ended up very ideal slicers and flavorful after 10 hours heat drying them. I did mine twice where yours could have done it once and probably faster. Mine's rated at 250 watts and this one gallon baggie picture contains almost a level equivalency to 1.5 gallons when in freshly harvested condition. I shared a few fresh with Jafar recently but he would not be impressed with any quality until dried like mine. Jafar is a good source of information about fruit of course because of his involvement at past fruit tasting. I bought a few 'bosc' on account of his recommendations that old boscs when getting really soft are optimal for this drying.
Well it seems fruit leather is pretty easy to make. I just mixed something sweet with something tart, and I like the results. Some probably could have used a little added sugar, but I'm happy with everything so far.
I very much like that I can mix apples, grapes, and berries in pretty much any combination and the results are still good. For years I have just dried things individually, which 1) gets really old after a while (e.g. I still have dried apples from last year); and 2) certain berries when dried alone taste pretty awful (e.g. sea buckthorn). Mixing things together makes them more appealing to me which means I'm more likely to eat more of them and thus gain their benefits (which are numerous for aronia and sea buckthorn).
Some photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NxjC.....ht81afDnf7
jafar said
Nice. Blueberry and seaberry sounds like a good combo. Blueberries can be insipid and seaberry real tart..What are the seed looking parts in your leather? It looks like you've incorporated a significant amount of air, probably making the leather less dense and faster drying.
I haven't tried blueberries yet but I plan to (they are in the freezer). Yes seaberries have a very unique flavor, kind of like if you took 3 lemons and an orange, and shrank them down to the size of a raisin. Not something you can eat much of by itself.
The seed looking parts are in fact seeds 
. In the dehydrator they become crunchy, no big deal to eat. Even the grape seeds are no big deal. Most seeds are quite good for you. Although I do remove apple seeds/core/stem.
I'm not sure what you mean about incorporating air. I pour the liquid from the blender into the silicone trays, and dehydrate them. Thus you end up with 14"x14" sheets of fruit "leather", which I roll up, fold in half, and bag. What you see in the first photo is parts of two rolls, sliced into bite-sized sections.
I don't think it would work to use just berries. You need some sort of fiber (or fructose? or pectin?) to hold everything together - thus I add apples or grapes. Plums would be great also, but I was gone when all my plums ripened. I would love to try pears as well but my pears aren't producing yet. The mixes which didn't have much fiber were very brittle. Still edible, but a bit messy to work with once dried.
One thing that was annoying this year was the amount of fruit flies. Drying 12 trays of blended fruit sends out a strong, sweet fruit smell which caused fruit flies to gather on our exterior doors and window screens. Whenever we opened the door, dozens of them got in the house. I killed probably 500 of them, at least. In past years we always got a few, but never before have we had hundreds.
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