 Flavor packed and high in nutrition, fruit leather is a chewy dried fruit treat. Removing the water during drying concentrates the sugars, acids, fiber, vitamins, and minerals in the solid part of the fruit. Fruit leathers are lightweight and pack and store easily, making them easy to take along on hikes, camping trips, and bicycle trips. Hi, I'm Julie Cascio with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. Making fruit leather can be fun. Pick berries or fruit when ripe, then make a parade, spread it on a tray, and dry. Wrap and store for later use. If you are too busy in the summer, freeze the berries. When Christmas rolls around, you can make a variety of fruit leathers and put an assortment into gift boxes for friends and family. It's a great way to bring a bit of summer to the winter months, or to send a bit of Alaska to far away family. Drying does not improve the quality of produce. Therefore, it's important to choose produce of high quality and at the desired stage of ripeness. Fruits to be used in leathers can be overripe as long as they're not spoiled. Before drying, sort the fruit. Use any fruit with bruises immediately. Follow directions for preparing the fruit parade carefully so that quality is maintained. Fruit is ideal for drying because of its naturally high sugar content. Fruit is high in acid and thus less prone to spoilage in microorganisms. A variety of fruits can be used to make leathers. They can be used singly or in combinations. Spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and mint add extra flavor. Fruits are naturally sweet, so it may not be necessary to add sweetener. Equipment for making fruit leather includes an oven, oven thermometer, and tray, or a portable electric dehydrator with enclosed heating elements, fan, and a thermostat that ranges from 85 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit with a dial for regulating temperature, mesh trays, parchment paper or plastic trays, nonstick cooking spray, knife and cutting board, spoon, spatula, timer, measuring cups and spoons, a small pan or microwave safe container, blender, and packaging for storing the fruit leathers. The example I'm preparing is rhubarb strawberry fruit leather that will be dried using a food dehydrator. This is one cup of rhubarb that has been cooked in the microwave for about two minutes. Of course it can be cooked on the stove instead. In the blender I have two cups of strawberries. These are frozen, but fresh could be used. Paray the strawberries, which we've already done, and then add the rhubarb and honey to taste. We're going to start with two tablespoons of honey, as the rhubarb is quite tart. Do not use granulated sugar instead of honey, as it may crystallize during storage, and then you get a brittle leather. But you could use corn syrup if you wished. Drying concentrates flavors, and the fruit leather is going to taste sweeter than the paray anyway, so be careful not to add too much at this point. Now you can line your dehydrator trays with parchment paper cut to the size of the tray, as we've done over here with the applesauce paray. Or you can use a plastic tray, and for the plastic tray I'm going to spray it with a nonstick cooking spray. That gives us an easier release. I'm going to pour the rhubarb paray on it, and then you can spread it out if it doesn't get evenly distributed by tilting the tray, or you can use a spatula to make it even. It needs to be an eighth of an inch thick to about a quarter of an inch thick. If it gets too thick it'll take a lot longer for it to dry. That looks pretty good. If it's too thin, then you can thicken the paray by putting it over heat and stirring constantly until the mixture thickens just over a low heat. Then remove it from the heat and cool it a little bit before you add it to the trays. A quarter teaspoon of cinnamon or a dash of nutmeg could be added to this recipe if you wanted a little bit of different flavor. This time we will make blueberry applesauce fruit leather and dry it in the oven. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper cut to size, which we've done. Put two cups of blueberries in your blender. Blend to the consistency of a thick paray. These two cups of fresh blueberries make about one cup of blueberry paray. Combine this with one cup of applesauce. This is store bought applesauce. The mousse ate the buds on my apple trees, so I don't have any homemade at the moment. Then add honey to taste. We're going to start with about two tablespoons of honey. Fresh Alaska or frozen Alaska wild berries tend to be on the tart side. That looks well blended. Pour the parade fruit onto the parchment lined tray. We're going to leave a border of about an inch around the edges so that if the paray spreads during dehydrating it has room to go. You can spread this by tilting the tray or by using your spatula to spread it out about an eighth to a quarter inch thick. You want it even across the whole surface. If you leave a bit of parchment on the edges after it's dried it's easier to pull it out of the tray. Set the oven so the inside temperature remains at 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Use an oven thermometer to test the temperature. Leave the oven door ajar so moisture can escape. It takes a minimum of six hours to dry fruit leather in the oven, but always test for dryness. Drying times can vary widely. Sugar holds water and fruit with a lot of natural sugar, especially if honey or corn syrup is added, may take several hours longer than that to dry. Fruit purée may take six to 24 hours to dry. Leather is done when it has a leathery appearance and is pliable enough to roll up jelly roll fashion. Here's an example. Test by separating the leather from the tray. And sometimes it takes a little bit of getting your fingers underneath there. Or it could be the parchment paper that it was dried on. If it separates easily it's done. And this is a good example of one that is done. Sometimes it'll stick down here or you'll notice dark spots on top. And in that case it's not dry and you need to dry it longer. When it is dry then remove it from the tray and cool it briefly. To store we want to place our leather on clean plastic wrap and then roll it up. And the plastic wrap is going to separate the layers so they don't stick together. And we'll put it in a plastic bag. Be creative. Invent your own leather specialties. Combine different fruit purées. Add spices or flavorings such as cinnamon or mint. Nuts, seeds, raisins or coconut can also be sprinkled over purées that are still moist. The fruit leather on the tray that is still moist. Almost dry but not quite. Then continue drying. This adds a variety of textures and flavors to your fruit leather. Then enjoy. In my family fruit leather doesn't last long.