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This is a How-To for Fruit Leather. I can’t call something with just 2 ingredients a recipe. It’s so easy. Funny enough, this was actually the result of a blunder.
My mom cuts her gazillions of plums in half and dries them in the sun to make prunes. She starts off by baking them on low heat for a short time. That short time turned into a long time, which “ruined” a huge batch of plums. Mom decided to try something new. I know it’s not an original concept but she really did discover how to make fruit leather by mistake. It was a hit, especially with the kiddos! We re-created it again with our own plums.
Update: this year we made apricot fruit leather and it was amazing and we documented the process along with a sunshine drying method here.
Ingredients for Plumb Fruit Leather:
7 lb plums (around 5 quarts bowl)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
How to Make Plum Fruit Leather Rolls:
1. Preheat oven to 400° F. Wash, cut in half and pit the plums.
2. Lay halved plums out on rimmed cookie sheets with cut side up and place in the oven for 20 min. If plums are smaller in size, set a timer for 15 min and check every 5 minutes to avoid burning the plums.
3. After 20 minutes, remove plums from the oven and let them cool.
4. Using blade attachment in the food processor, blend plums until smooth and pour finished mixture into a large bowl.
5. Add 3/4 cup of granulated white sugar to blended plums and stir well. Add more sugar to taste if needed.
6. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper covering the walls of the baking sheet as well. Pour the purée into the lined baking sheets to about an 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. We filled 3 baking dishes that fit on 2 levels in the oven together.
7. Let dry in the oven for as long as it takes for the purée to dry out and form fruit leather, about 6-8 hours, more or less depending on the thickness of your fruit leather.
There are several ways to dry this out:
(1). If your oven has a low heat setting at 140˚ F: Heat the oven to low 140°F. Place the baking sheets with purée in the oven on the two racks placed as much in the center as possible.
(2) Our oven preheats to 170˚ F so we kept the oven door slightly open by putting a wooden spoon in the door. If you have a convection setting available, use it to speed up the process.
(3) If you don’t want to prop the oven door open and your lowest setting is 170˚ F, preheat to 170˚ F, then turn the oven off and leave the door closed completely and reheat it after an hour; repeat as necessary until it dries out.
(4) My mom let it dry in the sun for 2 days. You may also use a food dehydrator.
Keep in mind, the goal is for the fruit leather to dry out, not cook. The fruit leather is ready when it is no longer sticky and has a smooth surface.
8. When the fruit leather is ready, you can use a pizza cutter to cut fruit leather into srips. To store it, roll it in its parchment paper, put it in an airtight container or ziploc bag and store in the refrigerator or freezer.
Have you tried fruit leather with any other fruit?
How to Make Plum Fruit Leather
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400° F.
- Wash, cut in half and pit the plums. Lay halved plums out on rimmed cookie sheets with cut side up and place in the oven for 20 min. Check every 5 minutes to avoid burning the plums.
- After 20 minutes, remove plums from the oven and let them cool. Using blade attachment in the food processor, blend plums until smooth and pour finished mixture into a large bowl.
- Add 3/4 cup sugar to blended plums and stir well. Add more sugar to taste if needed. Than line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper covering the walls of the baking sheet as well. Pour the purée in to about an 1/8" to 1/4" thickness.
- Let dry in the oven for as long as it takes for the purée to dry out and form fruit leather, about 6-8 hours, more or less depending on the thickness of your fruit leather.
There are several ways to dry this out:
- Heat the oven to low 140°F. Place the baking sheets with purée in the oven on the two racks placed as much in the center as possible.
- If the lowest setting on the oven is 170°F, than preheat to 170°. Turn the oven off and leave the door closed completely and reheat it after an hour; repeat as necessary until it dries out. The fruit leather is ready when it is no longer sticky and has a smooth surface.
This is such a cool idea! Wondering if I can substitute the white sugar (I never use) with brown sugar?
I think it would work, just add it to taste. Because there is molasses in brown sugar, your fruit leather will look darker.
Hi
We have frozen plums and i am wondering if they will work in this recipe. Thx!
Shannon
Shannon, frozen plum are fine to use in this recipe 😀.
For some reason I used both white and brown (more eco friendly or whatever) parchment paper. The leather peeled easily from the brown paper but was impossible to peel off the white. Both boxes are clearly marked parchment paper, I have no idea why it works on one and not the other. A little disappointing but at least half of the batch survived.
Looks delish! Thanks for the recipe, I featured it on my blog: http://www.colorfulcanary.com/2015/10/16-not-so-pruney-ways-to-preserve-plums.html
Thank you for the feature :).
Will this work for any other fruits? For example, if I did not have plums, what kind of fruit would work?
Yes it would work for other stone fruits and probably even berries but your sugar to fruit ratio may be different and I’d recommend adding it to taste. Also, some fruits are juicier than others so it may take longer to dehydrate them in the oven.
Yummy. We call it “Lavashak” and dry it in the sun traditionally.
We dont add sugar, prefer sour ones.
Different tastes around the word 😉
I liked the way you dry these. good idea…
Welcome to the site Tara and thanks for sharing your version :).
Most fruits can be made into leathers. Cook and puree the fruit first. Adding apples helps to extend more expensive fruits and tones down the tartness of fruits like plum, reducing the need for added sugar. Yoghurt also makes a yummy addition and reduces, or makes completely unnecessary, any further sweetening. I am currently enjoying leather made with equal quantities of apricot yoghurt and pear puree which was sweetened with a pinch of stevia. Tastes like a most delicious chewy milk candy without all the processed additives and sugar. My mum used to make treats with her plum or peach leathers by spreading a sheet of fruit leather with cream cheese, rolling it up into a log and then cutting into small pinwheels.
I’ve never tried adding yogurt. Do you find that it spoils faster with the addition or yogurt or does it not matter if it’s dried into the fruit leather? Thank you so much for sharing! 🙂
I’m wondering why you have to cook the plum?
Cindy, it works best if you bake them first to soften them up. They also blend much better.
Can I use wax paper instead of parchment paper?
Things tend to stick much more to wax paper so I wouldn’t recommend it. I think you’ll have a much easier time taking it off the parchment paper. If all you have is wax paper, you might try spraying a little cooking spray on it (a tip shared by one of my readers) to prevent it from sticking to the wax paper.
Can we make this with just a pound of plums? I don’t need that much for one person.Thoughts please?
Yes that will work fine, just reduce the sugar down proportionally of course 🙂
YES!! love it. I made fruit roll-ups before with apricots and another time with figs. The only difference was that I cooked it slightly to melt the sugar and to puree the fruit. My apricot rolls are still good after 3 months in the freezer!!
Apricot and fig roll-ups sound delicious :). I never kept my in the freezer but thats a great idea, thank you for sharing.
do u think I can use dry plums?
Alina, this recipe only works with fresh fruit.
Do you know approximately how much volume of pureed plums you have before you add the sugar? I have a bunch of plum butter (no sugar) that isn’t thick enough that I would like to try this with. THanks for the great recipe!
From looking at the bowl that it’s in, I’d say it was roughly 2.5 Liters.
This looks awesome! I know we made something similar to this in a cooking class but for some reason I think it took wayyy less time. Possibly we had a dehydrator. Thanks for sharing this! I’ve been tinkering with the idea of making something like this to use as running fuel!!
The dehydrator would definitely speed up the process! 🙂
Can you sub the sugar for a different sweetener so these are paleo?
What kind of sweetener did you have in mind? If it is a liquid one, you will just have more drying time so keep that in mind :).
Would it work if I substituted honey for white sugar? Would it just take longer to dry?
Yes, it would take a little longer to dry. Without testing it, I couldn’t say exactly how long. Add it to taste. 🙂 I’m actually making it today (it’s still in the oven finishing up) and I made it with organic sugar this time.
Do I need to add sugar? I prefer not to add any extra sugar unless it’s necessary. My plums are very ripe and very sweet. Will it work with just plums?
Even if the plums are very ripe, the fruit leather might be a little tart. You can definitely taste it before mixing in the sugar and see if it is sweet enough for you.
Hi what is the lowest is 200 how can I do it and how long
Sveta, if your lowest setting is 200˚F, preheat to 200˚F, then turn the oven off and leave the door closed completely and reheat it after an hour; repeat as necessary until it dries out. Hope this helps.
I have made fruit leather before and I like softening the fruit in the oven better. It seems much easier then the stove. This is the first time I have put it in the oven. Previously comments have mentioned that the fruit stick to parchment paper. I spray a little cooking spray, before setting the fruit on the tray. It has always been easy to remove when I have used my dehydrator. We will see in 6-8 hours if it is the same in the oven. Thanks to you and your mom for a new way to make fruit leather.
That’s a great idea to spray with cooking spray! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
Hi Natasha,
thank you for answering me back about my question.
I will try to let you know how I made the fruit leather after
I will make fruit leather from your recipe if I will have a chance.
God Bless you Natasha.
Hi Natasha,
how do you make the fruit leather that the parchment paper would not stick to the fruit leather? I want the fruit leather to be easily removed from the parchment paper.
If it’s dried adequately, it shouldn’t stick to parchment. It will stick to wax paper so I wouldn’t recommend it, but parchment paper shouldn’t stick. Were you having trouble with it sticking?
Hi Natasha,
yes I did have a problem with it sticking when I baked it in the oven. I made it last year from the strawberries. I made it my third time by following every step from another recipe, but I have failed. Thank you for answering my question because I had no idea that the fruit must be good dry. Another recipe did not tell me to bake the fruit until it has enough dryness.
I haven’t tried it with strawberries but that does sound like it would taste amazing as fruit leather! Strawberries are juicier though so it might take a little more time to dry them out in the oven.