DIY Strawberry Banana Fruit Leather

This Strawberry Banana Fruit Leather Recipe is a wonderful way to use up fruit and create a great lunchbox snack for your kids. Heck..it'd be a great snack for you!

Fruit leathers, also known as fruit paper and fruit taffies, are chewy fruit roll-ups made from either cooked or uncooked fruit purée. They are an excellent use for slightly overripe or bruised fruit that you might otherwise discard.

Strawberry banana fruit leather is a no-cook fruit leather recipe. You can turn this into a raw fruit leather recipe made in your dehydrator with only a few modifications.

This recipe is best suited for strawberries and bananas that are very ripe. This fruit will be naturally sweet and therefore, no sugar is needed.  Using less than ripe fruit will still work but it will yield a tart fruit roll. If you find that you need to use fruit that is not fully ripe, consider adding raw honey during the blending process.

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Strawberry Banana Fruit Leather Recipe

Yield || 2 large dehydrator trays cut into 16 one inch strips

Drying Time ||  135°F for 6 to 8 hours

Ingredients

• 2 pounds strawberries, washed and hulled. Though, from personal experience, I wash and don't hull.
• 3 medium-size ripe bananas. Use bananas when they are just beginning to have brown spots, that is when they are at their sweetest.
• water or fruit juice (optional) as needed

Equipment:

• Blender
• Dehydrator
• Fruit leather sheets or parchment paper

Instructions:

1. Wash the strawberries and cut them into quarters. Add to a blender.
2. Break bananas up into 2-inch pieces, then add to the blender.
3. Add honey to taste, if desired.
4. Blend the fruit mixture until smooth. Add water or juice in 1-tablespoon increments, as needed to thin.
5. Spoon the fruit puree in equal amounts onto 2 dehydrator trays that are covered with tray liners or parchment paper.
6. Dry at 135°F / 57°C for 6-8 hours or until done.
7. Flip the sheets over as soon as they are sturdy enough to handle to make a more efficient drying time

Oven directions:

1. Follow steps 1-4 above
2. Spread puree onto Silpat or other non-stick oven-safe sheets or parchment paper that has been placed in a cookie sheet.
3. Dry at the lowest possible setting your oven has. If it doesn't go down enough, you can crack the door (see more tips for oven drying here). If you cannot crack the door keep a close eye after a few hours.
4. Dry for 2-6 hours (or overnight if you can get it down to 140°F/60).

When is the fruit leather dry?

You will know your fruit leather is finished when you can easily remove it from the tray in one piece. If there are parts that are still sticking to the liner, keep drying for 5 to 10 more minutes.

You will see that the side of the leather that was facing the tray is shiny and the side that was facing up is dull. It will be easy to handle and not sticking to your fingers. It may stick to itself, but that’s ok.

Drying Fruit Leather FAQ's

Best Technique for spreading fruit puree?

Dehydrator trays tend to dry from the outside in. To help the leather dry equally, adjust the thickness of the slurry on the outside to be a bit thicker than the inside. This is easily done with a spatula or cake decorating offset knife.

How thick should Fruit leather puree be?

Puree should not be spread any thicker than one-quarter of an inch on dehydrator trays. The thinner you make your slurry, the quicker the sheet will dry.

Use caution with thin slurry, it will dry faster than the drying times recommended in this recipe and may become brittle instead of pliable.

My Fruit Leather is Sticking!

It is easiest to remove fruit leather from the tray liners when the leather is still warm.

Alternatively, you can put your sheet into the freezer for about ten minutes, then peel the backing from the leather (as opposed to peeling the leather off the backing).

Can You Overdry Fruit Leather?

If you find that you have overdried your fruit leather to the brittle stage, you have two options:

• Turn it into powder and use for baking or smoothies,
• Wet a paper towel or napkin and place it over the dries leather. It will absorb moisture and become pliable again.

Can I do this on a raw food diet?

Raw food has digestive health benefits and using a dehydrator to make fruit leather allows you to control the temperature better than using a traditional oven. While there is some debate over this topic, many experts feel that foods heated over about 112°F retain less vital enzymes.

According to the article Raw Food Diet Benefits on Dr. Axe, “Digestive enzymes are used by the body to break down foods to smaller and more operable nutritional units. This point shouldn’t be overlooked, because it’s not only how many nutrients a food has to offer that matters, but how we are actually able to absorb these nutrients.”

How to Store Fruit Leather in the Pantry

Fruit leather will usually not be sticky right after it is finished and you may think that it is not necessary to wrap it in paper or plastic. If you know that it will be eaten in a few weeks, you are safe to roll it without paper.

As the leather sits in storage, the sugars will become more active and the fruit will begin to stick together. If you expect to keep them in the pantry for more than 2 weeks, take the time to wrap them so they will be easier to eat.

I keep these pieces in a canning jar with a tightfitting lid so my family can remove individual serving size pieces. They will store in a cool, dark, dry pantry cupboard for 1 to 2 years.