Dehydrated Spiced Apple and Milk Kefir Fruit Leather
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Ahhhhh fruit leather. One of my favorite things to make in the dehydrator and you’ll be seeing all my homemade fruit leather recipes/concoctions over the months. Dehydrating fruits into fun flavored leathers is a delicious way and a different way to preserve a bountiful harvest. The nice thing about home food preservation is you can do whatever tastes good to you and your family and here we LOVE dehydrated apples. They. Are. So. Good. And then puree them and turn it into a homemade HEALTHY fruit roll up. GET OUT OF TOWN.
Okay. Maybe we just really love dried fruit in general. But apple fruit leather hits a sweet spot for me. I love the flavor and that chewy texture speaks to my soul. Homemade fruit leather is lovely for lunch boxes, the perfect snack, gifts (because who wants dye and sugar laden poison), when you need something sweet, a great way to use an abundance of fruit you don’t know what to do with, and more. It’s so easy and so good!
This recipe uses my home canned sliced & spiced canned fried apples, but you can also just use some cooked apples you make. I do recommend cooking the apples first so they’re easy to blend up and make a good leather as opposed to just blending them raw. They are “saucier” cooked and make a nice, chewy leather whereas uncooked fruit tends to get crispy and doesn’t really give that leathery final product we’re looking for. It’s weird and I guess you won’t totally understand what I’m yapping about unless you try it :D
I also add about 1 cup of my homemade milk kefir I make with raw goat milk from my herd. It’s so so so so sweet and yummy and adds just a bit of tartness and a unique flavor to the fruit leather. It also adds some probiotic goodness along with protein to the mix. Probiotics (beneficial bacteria) normally start dying off around 120F, and we’re drying this at 135F, but in my research not everything dies off immediately at that temperature. So do with that what you like.
To be successful with fruit leather, you’re going to want a specific dehydrator with a back fan and flat trays. They’re also occasionally called box-style dehydrators because they’re, you guessed it, shaped like a box. The stacking dehydrators are cumbersome and hard to make a nice sheet of fruit leather. It’s possible, but it’s just not great. I have had a Magic Mill 10 tray dehydrator for about 7 years now and love it. It works well, holds a lot of food, and I found these silicone dehydrator mats that work perfectly for fruit leather in my dehydrator. This recipe filled 3 of these mats.
You can also use your oven (if you don’t own a food dehydrator) on the lowest setting with a parchment lined baking sheet, but I have found the dehydrator is the best bet and the best texture and flavor since you can do a cooler temperature. If your oven doesn’t have convection (a fan), I would not use it. Without air movement, drying things isn’t going to go well. It’s going to take for-evvvv-errrrr.
Equipment You May Want:
- Dehydrator
- Silicone Dehydrator Mats with a lip
- Immersion Blender
- Mason jar & Lid
- Mason jar vacuum sealer
Ingredients:
- 3 quarts sliced & spiced canned apples (or about 9 cups cooked apples or applesauce)
- 1 cup milk kefir
- up to 1/4 cup honey
Step 1: Blend
Drain 3 quarts of home canned sliced & spiced apples. If using raw apples, wash apples, peel if you want, cut into small pieces, and cook til tender however you want. An electric pressure cooker could be handy for this. Once you have cooked apple slices, drain the apples from the excess cooking water. Cool the cooked apples slightly.
Add in the milk kefir and blend until smooth with an immersion blender. You want it to be a nice, thick applesauce consistency. If you want to thin it out some or it’s too gloopy to blend smooth, add a bit more milk kefir.
Step 2: Flavor
If you don’t prefer added sugar, don’t add anything extra because sugar does increase the drying time. Especially if you use the right kind of apples that are already really sweet, you shouldn’t have to add any more additional sugar content past the natural sweetness. I used pink lady apples that were VERY tart for this most recent batch, so I did add a healthy glob of some raw honey. I go by taste here. I’ve also added maple syrup and coconut sugar in past batches and both worked perfectly.
Stir well and taste the puree. The fruit leather will concentrate and get a bit sweeter in flavor after drying, so keep this in mind. If you add too much sugar it will prevent your leather from turning into leather and it’ll just be really sticky.
Also, if you’re not using my sliced and spiced apples recipe, be sure and add some cinnamon, a touch of nutmeg, and a dash of salt for spices and flavor if you want. You can also opt out and keep it simple!
Step 3: Fill Dehydrator Trays
To each tray lined with a silicone lipped tray OR parchment paper, spread out about 2 cups of fruit puree into an even layer. I fill the tray to almost the top of the lip of the silicone mat, spread out the apple puree with a spatula as best I can, and then tap the tray on the counter to even it out that way.
Be sure and not make it to thin. Yes, it will dry faster, but it will very likely tear into pieces when you’re removing it to roll up.
Place dehydrator trays evenly spaced out into dehydrator.
Step 4: Dehydrate
Dry fruit leather at 135F for 8-12 hours or til the fruit is not sticky to the touch in the center, looks nice and translucent, and there’s not obvious moist spots. Dry time with vary greatly depending on puree layer thickness and liquid content of your food, but also velocity of your dehydrator fan. The times given here are times that are for MY dehydrator, so yours may take 4 hours or it may take 2 days. Adjust accordingly and watch your leather.
If you aren’t like me and you’re responsible and not forgetful, once the leather top firms up and the edges lift easy, you can slip the leather sheet to help it dry faster. I never, ever… I mean NEVER EVER NEVER NEVER remember to do this and we do just fine.
Remove trays from the dehydrator, peel the fruit leather from the silicone mat, and allow to cool for 1 hour. You can skip the cooling if you’re in a hurry, I just for some reason prefer it. If you are unsure of the dryness, err on the side of over-dry instead of under-dry so you don’t lose all your hard work to mold and spoilage. Rip off a piece, feel it in your fingers, bite it, and decide if it feels dry. Apples normally are rubbery when appropriately dried and their leather will be the same. This is something you just have to learn by doing as it’s hard to describe.
Once cool, remove fruit leather sheets and roll up into a tight roll. If you used parchment, you can roll the fruit leather still attached to the parchment.
Slice into about 2 inch sections and keeping rolled up, transfer to an airtight container, such as a mason jar with a vacuum sealed lid.
Step 5: Storage
Fruit leather when dried properly and stored vacuum sealed should keep for a very long time… we’re talking 6 months shelf life at room temperature. Longer if you mylar. It never lasts more than a few days here though!
The dehydration process removes the liquid that causes food spoilage, using age old techniques from long ago before refrigeration was possible. It uses the lowest temperature possible to to minimize bacterial growth while also promoting the best and fastest drying process. Don’t think you can crank the temperature and dry your food faster. That’s a temptation I fell for and learned the hard way. It actually INCREASES the dry time because the outside dries too fast into a leathery barrier holding the internal liquid inside.
This is called hardening and once you have it happen to you, you’ll learn you a lesson. It’s completely avoidable so, for best results, don’t get yourself in a rush. I know it’s hard, especially if your kids are like mine and have their faces all but smashed into the dehydrator door asking “is it done yet” for the billionth time, but persist. Moisture diffusion takes TIME and you have to give it TIME. And my kids need to learn patience. LOL
Equipment
- Mason Jar & Lid
Ingredients
- 3 quarts sliced & spiced apples or about 9 cups cooked apples or 6 cups applesauce (see NOTES)
- 1 cup milk kefir
- up to 1/4 cup honey to taste
Instructions
- Drain canned apples and add to a large mixing bowl. Pour in milk kefir.
- Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. It should look like applesauce. Add in honey to taste; I do no more than 1/4 cup. Mix.
- Line your dehydrator tray with a silicone mat with a lip. Find the ones I use linked above. Add about 2 cups of puree to each tray, smoothing into a thin layer with a spatula and by tapping tray to level it out.
- Place trays into the dehydrator and dry at 135F for 6-12 hours. It depends entirely on how wet the mixture is and how thick it is.
- The fruit leather should be pliable but not wet or sticky. Be careful not to overdry as it will get crispy.
- Remove leather sheet from silicone tray. Roll into a big roll and cut the roll into about 4 pieces. Keep rolled and place them in a wide mouth quart jar. Vacuum seal lid and store on the shelf for up to several months, but they won't last that long!
