I made homemade baby food as often as possible when Little Sweets was a baby. She loved 99% of everything I gave her, including tofu for finger food, barley cereal and
oatmeal with kale (which she still eats every day and won't have her oatmeal any other way!).
Now that she's older, I thought I'd try making Homemade Fruit Leather. I followed the directions from
Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron, the same book I used as a reference for all the healthy baby food I made her.
What a healthy and fun treat, right? Just pureed, dried fruit... no weird ingredients or added sugar.
What you need to make Homemade Fruit Leather:
strawberries (or any other fruit or combination of fruits)
your oven
Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
Prep a 10"x15" cookie sheet (with edges): Place a layer of plastic wrap a little longer than cookie sheet on top and smooth it out. Tape plastic wrap onto cookie sheet along all four edges.
Puree clean, dry fruit in a food processor or blender. You'll want approximately 2 cups of puree, but no more unless your cookie sheet is bigger than 10"x15". I used 25 medium-sized strawberries to get the right amount, which filled up my tiny food processor:
Pour pureed fruit onto prepared cookie sheet. Spread into all the corners and make sure it is evenly distributed. Cook in oven for 3-4 hours with door slightly open, or until fruit is thoroughly dried and pulls away from plastic wrap easily. (A more energy-efficient method is to cook it for 30-35 minutes in a 275 degree oven, then turn oven off and leave door closed overnight or for 8-10 hours.)
My cookie sheet (or oven?) was tilted a bit so I had one corner that was a bit mushy and didn't end up setting well, but the rest dried to a thin and slightly crispy leather.
At this point, you can just peel the fruit leather off the plastic wrap and eat it right away, or you can turn your fruit leather into homemade Fruit-By-The-Foot. Take the tape off the cookie sheet and roll up the plastic wrap from one of the shorter sides:
Use a sharp knife and cut through roll every 1" or so. When you are ready to eat it, remove plastic wrap and you'll have a 15" strip of fruit leather:
Little Sweets definitely enjoyed this healthy fruit treat!
It definitely saves you money, as Ruth Yaron points out in her book. Fruit Roll-Ups cost about $6.00 per pound, so if you're buying or growing fresh fruit for less than that, you're going to save money.
Making Fruit Leather is pretty time-intensive and a lot of work to get ten 1"x15" strips (especially since Little Sweets eats like 3 strips at a time) so I'll probably just make it when I have extra fresh fruit on hand. It's a great way to use up slightly overripe fruit, too!
