Strawberry Fruit Leather

Why We Love This Recipe

• Just 5 ingredients: This recipe only requires 4 ingredients, and a fifth if you want to make your fruit leather tie-dye.
• Nostalgic: I used to love Fruit by the Foot when I was growing up. These have that same red and blue tie-dye effect and the same satisfying paper peel, but they taste even better!
• Delicious: This strawberry fruit leather is sweet, tangy, fruity and downright delicious! It's honestly a bit difficult not to eat the entire batch in one sitting.
• Hands off: It does take a bit of time to let this strawberry fruit leather dry out in the oven, but it only takes a few minutes of prep time on your end. Just blend up the ingredients, pour onto a sheet pan and leave it in the oven!

Ingredients

Here's what you'll need to make this tie-dye strawberry fruit leather:

Ingredient Notes

• Strawberries: We use fresh strawberries for the best taste. You can use frozen, but you'll need to let the strawberries defrost and then strain to remove excess liquid. This may also alter the cook time of the recipe, as frozen will have different moisture content than fresh.
• Honey: You can try agave, maple syrup or even regular granulated sugar, but we like the flavor of honey. Alternatively, you could blend in 1-2 medjool dates for sweetness.
• Apple: This adds body to the leather and helps balance out the flavor. You can replace with more strawberry if you don't have apples on hand.
• Lemon: Freshly squeezed is always best. Don't skip this!
• Blue spirulina: We used this for the blue section of our tie dye fruit leather. You could also use a handful of blueberries or blackberries (thought the color won't be as intense, and it will result in some cracks in your leather), or natural or artificial food coloring (if you're ok with it). Spirulina does have a strong flavor when eaten by itself, but we used a small amount, and the cooking process leeches out some of the flavor.

Equipment

Zwilling Enfinigy Power Blender

To make this recipe, you'll need a blender, and for best results (i.e. preventing graininess), you'll want to use a high power blender.

We're using our Zwilling Enfinigy Power Blender for this recipe. It has 6 pre-programmed settings (Pulse, Smoothie, Cocktail, Ice Cream, Ice Crushing, and Cleaning), and 12 variable speed settings, so it's perfect for quite literally any task!

We use a blender at least a few times per day for recipe testing and daily cooking, so it's super important to have something that will last. Another huge bonus: it comes with a tamper, which I use all the time for making thick, creamy smoothie bowls.

We're almost finished with our kitchen renovation and I can't wait to see this on our countertops! It's sleek, beautiful and couldn't be easier to use. Check it out here.

Step-by-step Instructions

PREP: Preheat your oven to its lowest temperature (ours was 170˚F).

STEP 1: Add strawberries, apples, honey, and lemon juice to a blender and blend until completely smooth. You shouldn't see any seeds. 

Optional: soak a piece of parchment paper in water for a minute or two, dry it with a kitchen towel, and place it onto a rimmed 13x18" baking sheet. Wetting the parchment paper will help the fruit leather stick better. You can also use a silpat, but you won't get that classic peel-away paper characteristic.

STEP 2: Pour about 90% of your strawberry mixture into the sheet pan, and spread it out from the center towards the sides, so the sides are slightly thicker than the middle. Since the fruit leather dries from the outside in, the outsides will cook faster than the middle. If you leave too much pooled in the center, it will still be wet by the time the edges start to get crispy.

STEP 3: Add the spirulina to the remaining strawberry mixture and blend or whisk together. You can also use a handful of blueberries or blackberries to color this mixture. We tested it several times with fruit, and it always split slightly in the sections where the two colors meet, which is why we opted for spirulina. It still tastes good, but won't look as nice.

STEP 4: To create those tie-dye swirls, swirl your blue strawberry mixture on top of your red. Use a chopstick or knife to first make lines outward from the middle, then swirl in a circular pattern.

STEP 5: Transfer to oven and use a dish towel or oven mitt the prop open the oven door slightly. Bake for 5-6 hours until the leather feels a bit spongy but doesn't give way when you touch it. If there are any wetter spots, it's not done yet.

STEP 6: Use scissors to cut into strips, roll and enjoy! You can store for up to a month at room temperature, or up to 3 months in the freezer. 

Tips and FAQs

• Bang your tray on your countertop a few times to remove excess air bubbles from the mixture.
• Some crispiness around the edges is almost inevitable with oven cooking. Those pieces will still be delicious, but will be hard to roll up.
• Reviving crispy fruit leather: If you happen to overcook your leather, spray it with a spray bottle of water or pat it down with a damp towel and wait a while. Keep repeating this process until the leather is pliable.
• Spirulina does have a bit of a taste, but we find the small quantity used here will not affect the flavor. The cooking process also cooks out a lot of the flavor of the spirulina. You can also just use a handful of blueberries or blackberries instead, though the flavor won't be as intense, and you leather will split in the areas where the colors meet. It still tastes delicious, but doesn't look quite as nice.
• A lot of fruit leather recipes on the internet say to wait until your leather is no longer sticky to remove it from the oven. We've found this to be questionable advice, as our leathers are typically a bit sticky when done. If you wait until there's no stickiness at all, it'll be overcooked.
• A better way to tell if your leather is done is to give it a little touch in the center - if you can't feel any wetness beneath the top of your leather and it's been longer than five hours, you're probably good to go.

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