Homemade Fruit Leather
One of the recipe projects I am currently in love with is homemade fruit leather. It’s so easy to make, it tastes great, it’s a very easy way to use up a lot of fruit, it’s cheaper than buying fruit leather, and it makes nice gifts too.
Persimmons are currently in season and my mom has a giant persimmon tree that always produces more fruit than we can consume. We usually make dried persimmon slices, but this year I thought I’d try making fruit leather.
These were so easy to make and taste just like the ones you can buy from the store. I brought some home to my family and they loved it too. They even gave me another bag of persimmons on this recent trip home so that I could make them more.
I love that this is a project I can play with all year long with different kinds of fruit that are in season. I plan on making some more soon and gifting them to friends and family.
Homemade Fruit Leather
Ingredients
- 6 cups of chopped, very ripe fruit (strawberries, mangoes are some great options)
- sugar to taste if needed, some fruit, like the persimmons, are so sweet on their own that no sugar is needed
Instructions
- Blend fruit and sugar (if using) in blender until smooth.
- Set oven at lowest temperature setting (mine was at 180°F). Line two 13 x 18 baking sheet with Silpat mats.
- Pour fruit mixture onto silpat mats and spread with the back of a large spoon until the fruit mixture makes a sheet about a 1/8 inch thick across the surface of the silpat.
- Place baking sheets in the oven and bake for 6-8 hours, until fruit is dry. When you touch it, it should be still a little sticky, but it should be set and solid (not wet) like fruit leather.
- Let fruit leather cool. Once it is finished cooling, gently peel off the fruit leather from the Silpat. It should come off the mat easily. Cut small pieces of parchment paper (to desired length and width of fruit leather strips you want), then cut fruit leather to slightly under the size of the parchment paper. Place onto parchment paper and roll together. Tie with a string to hold the roll. Repeat with rest of fruit leather. Store in airtight container in a cool space.
Do you have to remove the skins to make this, or do you just grind it up with the mushy parts?
i removed the skin!
Have you ever tried using baby foods. I work with infants and children and often when infants transition to table foods mom complain they have a lot of left over jars of baby food. Think that would work?
i have not. but i think it’s worth a try!
That is strange, because I make it all the time on parchment paper?? I’ve never had it stick. Perhaps a different type of parchment?
Hmm, maybe it is because of the type/brand of parchment paper.
This looked like a great recipe- until I tried it! I must have done something very wrong because the fruit leather will not peel away from the parchment paper (I don’t have a Silpat mat so I lined the cookie sheet with parchment paper). What I was able to taste was great, but I had to scrap the whole batch 🙁 Any ideas?
I wonder if it is the parchment paper. I’ve only seen these made on silpat mats and plastic wrap before.
love making homemade fruit leather! i got the idea from martha stewart and turned some asian pear applesauce into fruit snacks!
Ooh that sounds like a good one!
I didn’t know fruit leather was that easy to make! Very nice, I’ll have to try this out with some of our fruit (we get lots and lots of apples and also guava).
I saw some recipes that require cooking it on the stove first but I didn’t see the point. And it worked out just fine without having to do that step.
Looks like your spellchecker did a number on you here and swapped persimmons for permissions.
Eeek, thank you for catching that. I didn’t even notice that happened when I read it through again.