Make Your Own Fruit Roll-Ups

Fruit roll-ups, you know? I mean the chewy snack that we used to call fruit leather, back before you could get it all plastic-packaged in every corner store.

It’s not only a great way to use up your past-its-prime fruit, but a wonderful energy-giving snack you can grab for a busy family on the go.

And it’s surprisingly easy to make your own fruit leather.

My recipe calls for apples, because that’s usually what I’ve got, but you can easily do half-and-half pears and apples, or experiment with whatever other fruit you like.

Fruit Leather

Ingredients:

½ cup sugar
½ cup honey
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp grated lemon peel
8 cups apples — peeled, cored and chopped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 150°F.

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth.

Cover a large baking sheet with a piece of plastic wrap, and spread the fruit mixture on it.

Bake at 150°F for about 6 hours, with the pan on the top rack of the overn and with the oven door left partway open. The baking (drying) time will depend partly on how much juice is in the apples. You’ll know the fruit leather is ready when the surface doesn’t feel tacky to the touch and you can tear it into pieces.

Roll up the plastic wrap off the baking sheet with the fruit leather inside — I like to cut it into snack-sized strips first — and store it in an air-tight container.