Homemade Fruit Leather

The other week I was looking up some cool things I could do with an excess of fresh fruit from the farmer's market. I came across a few recipes and instructions for how to make homemade fruit leather and I was immediately intrigued. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time that day to try it out, so this weekend I spent my sunday experimenting with homemade fruit leather.

Strawberry Fruit Leather

16 ounces fresh strawberries
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 lemon - juiced

After removing the stems for the strawberries, blend them in a food processor until smooth. Add the sugar and lemon juice and pulse a few times. You can strain the seeds from the mixture or leave them in, depending on your preference. Then spread the mixture onto a parchment paper lined baking pan (make sure to spray the parchment paper with cooking spray so that the fruit leather will peel away from the paper once baked). Spread the mixture out into  1/8 - 1/4 inch thick layer (I spread mine a little thin so they stuck a little so next time I would leave them a little thicker)
. Bake in a 200 degree oven for 2 -3 hours, until the leather is set and tacky in the center. Over cooking can lead to making fruit crisps instead of fruit leather. Once baking cut into strips and place each strip onto wax paper and roll to store.

This recipe was definitely an experiment. For the first time I think that it came out pretty well, however after doing it once I now how it can turn out better next time. Tomorrow will mark the half way point of summer and this blog. Its hard to believe that summer halfway over, although it did feel like it has been moving slower the last few weeks, but who knows, maybe the second half will move more quickly. So till next time,
Keep Cooking Brooklyn!