Fruit Leathers

This is another recipe from The River Cottage Handbook No. 2 Preserves I was going to make some plum leather when I made the tasty but now over set plum jam but I didn't have any apples. This week Mr VST brought home a massive bag of cooking apples and so I decided to buy some plums and try this out. It's SO EASY to make. You need 500g (1lb 2oz) cooking apples, the same amount of plums (or nectarines, berries etc), the juice of one lemon and and 150g honey.

Plums & Apples

Nectarines & Apples

You put the fruit and lemon juice into a pan on a medium heat for about 20 minutes until it goes soft. The second batch I made I put the apples in for about five minutes before adding the softer nectarines as I had had to put the apples back on the heat when making the plum mix. 

Step two says to add the honey and mix in well before putting the cooked fruit through a sieve or 'mouli', a food mill. This was the worst bit about making the first batch. For the second batch I just put it all in the food processor.

You then spread the puree quite thinly onto greaseproof paper, I used silicone baking sheets which worked perfectly, and put in the oven on a very low heat (60 degrees C) for 12-18 hours. I left mine overnight and both times they were done by the morning (about 12 hours) but I have a fan assisted oven. 

I really wasn't quite sure what to expect but I was really pleased. The result is a sheet of chewy, sweet fruit which is an amazing colour. 

I cut mine into strips with scissors and wrapped each roll in greaseproof paper before putting them all in jars.

They are like sweets only better, they are quite chewy and as I said very sweet. You can eat them as they are as a snack or chop them up and put them in your porridge or muesli. I am hoping to keep some for my ready brek in the winter, that is if they last that long. They are also extremely low in calories, I cut mine into 26 strips which makes them 37 calories a strip (for the nectarine ones). Fantastic. I'm so glad I tried these.