How to Make Fruit Leather
Serves: 3-4
Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: Overnight
Ingredients needed to make Fruit Leather:
- Any fruit of your choice, apples, berries, kiwi or pears for instance
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp Sugar (optional)
- Dash of finely grated nutmeg
Cooking instructions for Fruit Leather:
- For fruits like pears or apples, peel and core out the flesh before chopping them into small chunks.
- In case of berries, rinse them under running water and cut them into smaller pieces.
- Empty 4 cups of fruits into a large pot and pour ½ cup water into it; you can adjust the amount of water added according to the juicy quotient of the fruits.
- Heat the mixture over moderately high heat until it begins to boil.
- Lower the heat and stir in a couple of tbsp sugar and a splash of lemon juice into it; you can totally avoid the sugar if the fruit is really sweet.
- Simmer the mixture over slow flame until the fruit chunks are cooked through and turn mushy.
- Blitz the fruits with a hand blender until they form a gooey, smooth puree.
- Taste and adjust the tartness as well as sweetness of the puree by adding sugar or lemon juice, if necessary.
- Whisk in a pinch of grated nutmeg until well combined and tip it into a fine mesh sieve to strain it into a bowl and get rid of the seeds if any.
- Spread an oven-proof plastic paper across a cookie sheet and pour the mixture into it.
- Spread it across the sheet until it is about 1/4 inch in thickness and level out the surface with a spatula or back of a spoon.
- Warm up your oven to 160 degrees F or the slowest temperature setting of your oven and place the sheet within the hot oven.
- Bake it for about 8-10 hours or overnight, if possible.
- On the following day, test the doneness of the leather with your fingers; if it doesn’t appear sticky then it is ready.
- Peel it off from the plastic and set aside in a flat plate to cool.
- Slice it into small squared and serve without any more ado.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
