fruit leather question???

[twsmith001]

hey guys does anyone know if you can dehydrate jelly or jam to make fruit leather??? seems to me like half the work is already done for you plus the preservatives should help to make it last longer....and im thinking it might be cheaper than using fresh fruit which seams to me to be a tragic waste....

[tigerpaw]

This is not an exact answer to your question, but with regards to dehydrating anything....just try it. I make strawberry leather and everyone in this house (and all of their friends) love it. Purchase the strawberries that are "Manager's Special" and add a generous amount of honey to the blender. You dont have to remove the stems or greens. Just blend the whole thing and pour onto the liners of your dehydrator.

Spray the liners with PAM or equivalent. Slice into convenient sections and store. Couldn't be easier. I suspect jam or jelly could take quite some time to dry and may well be significantly higher in sugar content than you might want.

[Farr Away]

I haven't tried it, but this will be beyond sweet. Dehydrating will concentrate the sugars. Jelly and jam are already very sweet, so ... Also a lot of jams and jellies have corn syrup, which will make it more difficult to dehydrate successfully.

But like tigerpaw said, try it. Let us know.

The natural sugars in fruit will preserve the leather. I have never had any dried fruit or leather go bad, and some has lasted a year or more (misplaced in the back of the cupboard).

If you want to make fruit leather more inexpensively, look for marked-down overripe fruit, farmers markets, fruit stands, you pick places, and food service sized canned (in juice) fruit. Also keep an eye on sales and stock up. You can also use natural (unsweetened) applesauce with more expensive fruit like raspberries or blueberries, and still end up with leather that tastes like the more expensive fruit.

Speaking of blueberries, you can use frozen blueberries (thawed and blended), which tend to be less expensive than fresh - unless you're picking your own.

If you want to make fruit leather easy, open a jar of unsweetened applesauce and spread it on your dehydrator tray. You can also find it in a lot of different flavors (peach, strawberry, pineapple, etc).

[WingedMonkey]

If you want to make fruit leather easy, open a jar of unsweetened applesauce and spread it on your dehydrator tray. You can also find it in a lot of different flavors (peach, strawberry, pineapple, etc).

Easy....easy... easy

[JAK]

Not recommended for hiking boots or moccassins.

[Liv2Ride]

TOTALLY agree with everything you said.

[Liv2Ride]

Totally agree with Farr Away that is.

[twsmith001]

thanks guys i knew there must have been a reason....it sounded too simple....and thanks esp. to tigerpaw and farr away for there ideas.

[Walkintom]

We made leathers from cranberries after they were boiled and the juice was used for another recipe. Just pureed them, put them in the dehydator and let it do its thing.

Surprisingly awesome. I am normally not a big fan of the cranberry.