Fruit Leather

Hello cupcakes!

Some of you probably saw my Instagram post about my homemade fruit leather. I got the idea from an amazing blogger who I follow. Her blog is Simply Taralynn and the link can be found here: Simply Taralynn . She made some pumpkin fruit leather that looked amazing. I wanted to adapt her recipe a little bit to make it my own. I decided to use pumpkin, applesauce, cinnamon, and dates for my first batch. 

In a food processor I blended the dates until it formed a date paste (you can also make this without the dates and just use applesauce and pumpkin). After that, I added 1 16 oz can of unsweetened pumpkin, 1 c of unsweetened applesauce, and a cinnamon to taste to the food processor and blended until combined. 

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper. Spread the fruit paste onto the prepared baking sheets in a thin layer. You don't want it to be too thin that you can see the paper underneath, but you also don't want it too be too thick that it won't dry. It may take a couple times of making this to really get the thickness right. 

Bake for 4-8 hours. Check the fruit leather after 4 hours. If it still looks really under cooked then bake for another hour. Check it frequently. You want to pull it out before it starts turning a dark color. It should be a gummy texture. Once the fruit leather cools it will harden up a bit too!

Here is what my first batched looked like before baking. This one I made a little too thin and cooked it a little too long. It still tasted amazing, but it was more like jerky because I couldn't roll it up. 

I decided to try out a couple other recipes as well. I made a nectarine, unsweetened coconut, and strawberry fruit leather and another pumpkin and applesauce one without the dates. The fruit leather is on the top oven of the rack and my homemade almond flour was drying on the bottom rack.

Here is the final product! I also cooked these a little longer, so they look more like fruit jerky than fruit roll ups. They still taste amazing though!

Comment below and let me know if you have any favorite fruit combinations to make fruit leather! 

Later Taters! xoxo