Dried Fruit Rolls

A nice tasty treat.  Fruit rolls are fun to eat, and not too hard to make.  Inspired by Fruit Rollups, and Fruit Leather I made a fresh variation with no sugar added.  

WIth my families allergies, sack lunches were almost always in order.  But what to pack? These are cute and healthy options that will last a little over a month.  

Step 1: Ingredients

You will need fruit, pick your favorite.  You can use anything from frozen, to fresh from the garden!  For this I used two mangos, a half a bag of fresh cherries, and a lemon.  

As for tools/appliances, you will need a cutting bored, a knife, a blender, a pot and stove, something to mix with, a cooking sheet, and an oven.  

Comments

[Momarabbit]

I skipped the boiling and went from puree to baking in oven. It turned out great!
I transfered the fruit to wax paper after baking, then cut it into strips while still on the wax paper. I then rolled it like those you buy in the store and my kids did not even notice they were homemade, lol. Thanks for this!

[jtmcdole]

When I saw the pizza stone I thought I was looking in to my own oven for a second!

[Nicola Tesla]

me to!

[timothymh]

Pizza stones FTW.

[farzadbayan]

In Persian this is "Lavashak" ! It means dried fruit rolls . Nice work *

[S189]

That looks so tasty. Definitely like the easy healthy Instructables!

[logghi]

Awesome, I just mine in the oven. I used nectarines and strawberries, going well so far! But i did burn my thumb while simmering it, it was all bubbley DX

[ItzMeLogo]

Just awesome, an incredible idea. How did you come to to idea that the sugars in the fruit would crystalize and make it a chewy-kind of substance?

[IchyKichy]

I'm currently making this fabulous recipe, but it's been in the oven for now two and a half hours...it could take all day to dehydrate tho so just and fyi

[tcup120]

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone!

[timothymh]

Congratulations on getting in the newsletter!

[porcupinemamma]

Looks yummy. Has anyone seen an Instructable about how to make a food dehydrator?

[Phoghat]

Check out Alton Brown on the FoodNetwork channel. He has ways to make everything from cheap stuff around the house. I made bacon for the whole family from pork bellies, and a cardboard box smoker

[porcupinemamma]

Wow! thanks :0)

[Its Giggles]

lol you misspelled *poor*, a few times. We arent talking about poor people but instead, *pour*, as in the instructable. sorry about sounding like a spelling nazi but three time was just the charm lol. :P

[Phoghat]

Don't be a spelling Nazi

[porcupinemamma]

Isn't it nice that tcup shared her ideas with the community? Perhaps you would like to write about spelling in your very own instructable.

[porcupinemamma]

There is a private message option where you can send the writer a less public message

[Phoghat]

Why yes, there is

[rhoaste]

In relation to your post:
Capital letters missing. The word "time" (second instance) in this context should be plural. The word "aren't" is an abbreviation of "are not", and therefore requires an apostrophe to indicate absent letters.

LOL :P Isn't it amusing and worth mentioning when people get three things wrong with a post. @:-) LOL :P 8-) I recommend ensuring your own home is clean :P before making suggestions to others that they should vacuum theirs. :) LOL ;P Not that I'm being a grammatical "nazi" of course; three times was just the charm. :) 8^) :p

[timothymh]

*gives a high five*

[instructimaster]

Can I use orange juice instead of lemon? Would it be ok if I added the orange with the pith?

[maltesergr8]

Great instructable! Always wondered how to make these. Am curious as to why you add the lemon; is this to cut down the sweetness a little? Thanks for sharing ;-)

[brennanstout]

Lemons(citrus) have pectin in them. Extract the pectin and it acts as the gelatin agent.

[Bad Maxx]

Actually the pectin in citrus is in the peels and to extract it takes a hot diluted acid. It is a very time consuming and very involved process (acid first, then filtering, ethanol precipitation, separate, wash, dry, mill and finally standardizing with sugar) Not by any means the process involved here, if anything it has the opposite effect as it dilutes the fruit product, on the plus side it does act as a preservative.

[tcup120]

The lemon adds almost a "fullness" and freshness to it. Without it, it is easier to tell that it doesn't have any added sugar, a lot of the sweetness is dried out, and it's left tasting very bland. The lemon just makes the other flavors really stand out.

[instructimaster]

hmm, when i tried this, it turned into a thin liquid that wont get thicker. Is it because of the fruit I used? pear (without skin) and raspberry...

[Bad Maxx]

In my experience (we've been making homemade fruit "roll-ups" for many years) some fruits just take longer than others to boil to a thick consistency. It almost sounds like you are using too much lemon juice to the amount of fruit you have, berries take a very large portion as they really contain little fruit per berry. As for using higher temps for less time? NOT a good idea, I'm not sure why but it never seems to work well, we even prefer the 180 degree temp but we have a gas oven.

[instructimaster]

Could you put the temp to 400ºF (approx. 180ºC) and half the time in the oven to minimum 20mins?

[lyonpridej]

Your's look thicker & darker(& better tasting) than most home-made fruit rolls-maybe because you cooked it down. I wouldn't think cooking it gets rid of the vitamins & nutrients as someone suggested, otherwise that would be true of jams & jelly? At least it doesn't have all the additives you can barely pronounce! My grannie,bless her heart, made fruit rolls for years & I loved them until I found out that she would put the pans on the roof of her home to dry in the hot desert sun-which is a good idea,except I could just imagine the flies enjoying it before I did!Couldn't eat them after that!LOL! Seventy years old & she was still climbing up the ladder to put them on the roof! She just ran her fruit through the blender(didn't cook it), then she would pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with plastic wrap. When it was dry,all she had to do was roll it up & cut it to length & the plastic wrap protected it & kept it from sticking to itself. She stored it in her freezer & had some nearly all winter long!

[TahoeGal]

Hi there! I make these and do not cook anything, at all. It takes way less time and less clean-up. Plus, kids can do the whole thing themselves!!! Yeah!!!
I take the fruit, blend it really well and spread it out. I add a bit of vitamin C powder (ascorbic acid) as a "preservative" and they last indefinitely, as long as you get them really dry. Honey is also a natural preservative.I use a dehydrator, but a gas oven with a pilot light,  a reg oven heated up and turned off would all work. As for berries with seeds, you can get some of them out by pressing through a fine strainer if it is important to you.

[aleinlegs]

it seems like this would use alot of fruits/veggies to make a small amount of dried fruit . . . . anyway still looks really good, and imma try it!! thanks

[sclausson]

This project would be very "green" if a solar box oven were used to dry the fruit. Most homemade solar box ovens can reach 250 degrees. Cook between 10 am and 2 pm for best temperature. May take longer to cook but no hot kitchen in the summer.

[rguillen]

Good instructable, I wonder, would mixing vegetales, like carrots or beets also work, if it did it would add greatly to my kids diet.

[gora_ji]

With all respect by the time this recipe is cooked and then oven baked the valued nutrients will be almost, if not totally, destroyed by the heat.... 8-|

[silverdiablo]

You can focus on the positive and realize that home-made is so much better than feeding our kids the fruit snack garbage found in the grocery stores with paragraphs for ingredient lists. Granted, nothing beats fresh fruits and veggies but if this makes it fun for kids to eat the good stuff then giggidy giggidy

[BtheBike]

It must be said that Can be done raw(er) . Boiling is not necessary I'd say . A cheap dehydrator or a sunny day will keep the high nutrient value. And it taste better imho . Carrots ,beets and herbs are actually a great idea . Old timers call this "fruit leather" before a company rolled it up and marketed it .

[tcup120]

That's a great idea! I'll have to try it and see how it comes out.

[captain Jack]

Ingenious! No preservatives! How long will these last? Do they need to be refrigerated?

[bombmaker2]

He said about a month and I don't think they need to be refrigerated