Homemade fruit leather

Over the past few weeks I've developed a slight addiction to fruit leather!

So, in hopes of saving some money (fruit leather is not cheap!)

I decided to figure out how to make it myself.

Let's just say I'm suuuper glad I did!

Here's what I did....

(I took this recipe/process and tweaked it a bit!)

Raspberry + Blueberry + Coconut Fruit Leather

*you can use any fruit/extract combination you want, I just had a bunch of frozen blueberries and raspberries that were going to get freezer burned!

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries 

2-3 TBSP sugar (depends on how sweet you like your leather! I like mine pretty tangy.)

1/2 tsp coconut extract (1 tsp if you're a coconut lover!)

yield: 1 pan, about 8 fruit roll ups

(You can double it and put two pans in the oven as well!)

You will also need:

a blender

good quality plastic wrap (I used Saran Premium)

a rimmed baking pan

Directions:

Defrost fruit in microwave, then put into blender with sugar and coconut extract.

Blend until smooth.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees or lower if your oven allows (I did mine one about 170)

Place plastic wrap over your cookie sheet so it hangs off the edge a bit

(I know this is going against everything you've ever learned about ovens... just trust me!)

you may have to do two sheets and overlap them if it doesn't fit!

(Don't tape the extra plastic wrap down, it shrinks a bit in the oven!)

Pour berry mixture onto the center of the cookie sheet,

this way you can work your way out as you spread and make sure you don't run out of juice!

*This batch was a bit smaller because I made it with leftovers from yesterday, you should be able to spread the mixture to the edges of the pan!

Spread as evenly as you can! If it's thicker in some areas,

the other parts will get hard while that part still cooks. Bad news.

You want it to be about 1/8 inch thick.

You want to thinly cover the plastic wrap without any extremely thin or thick spots!

^^See that? Too thin in that little spot, and too thick on the edge!

Even that stuff out.

Once you've evenly spread the mixture, put it in the oven for about 7 hours, or until your finger comes up dry after pressing into it.

Right after you take it out of the oven, peel it off the plastic wrap!

It should come off in one piece or a few large pieces.

After I peeled the large pieces off, I separated them into 5x3 inch rectangles, put them on parchment paper, cut the paper to fit, then rolled them up and tied with string!

 And there you go! A fun, homemade snack.

The next flavor I'm going to figure out is pear + almond extract!

Also, I'm not sure how long they last, but I've heard you can freeze them if you don't think you'll eat them in a week or two!