In the late Autumn I have a lot of fruit. It comes in waves, through the summer it’s the soft fruits, then the plums, then rosehips, damsons apples, pears, quince. A good orchard I have learned is one that has a long picking season for eating and a short one for brewing.
What I mean by that is that variety is key to a good orchard, or indeed to picking just 2 fruit trees for your garden. But whatever you do you will have a glut some years, and most years when the trees are mature. So what to do?
One of my favourite snacks is fruit leathers – they are small, tasty nibbles that give you energy. They are easy to take out on walks or for a quick burst of energy when you’re working. And they are easy… My two mainstays are plum and apple, but any fruit or mix will do.
Prep: 10min Cook: 12min Dry: 8hours
Ingredients
6 large apples peeled and chopped
1 tblspn sugar
50ml water (depends on the fruit)
Method
- Put the fruit and sugar in a pan and stew the fruit, adding a little water if you need to.
- Cook the mix down until it starts to stick to the pan – as thick as you dare.
- spread the mix onto baking parchment about 5-8mm thick or silicon non stick and dry in a dehydrator or oven at 60c until it is a solid dry sheet. Drier stores longer, moister is nicer straight away.
- roll the sheet and cut into sections, store in an airtight container.
A few things to think about.
Firstly the sugar, you can use brown or golden, and or heat it in the pan to caramelise it first before adding the fruit. I add a little because I use cooking apples, but if I make this with dessert or eating apples I leave the sugar out entirely.
Second is the fruit. If I’m doing this with plums I leave the skins on but blitz them before cooking (so the bits of skin are tiny). If I don’t have enough of one fruit it will be a mix, apple and pear, apple and plum etc. They work well. If you’re no sure take a small piece of each fruit and eat them at the same time – if you like it then cook it. A taste test will also tell you if you need to add any sugar.
How dry? Well I tend to make my leathers so dry they crack when rolling, that’s so I can store them for months, taking me through (along with dried fruit) until the soft fruit starts.
Oh and our dig likes them too, so on a walk it can give them a boost if I’ve forgotten the snacks. And because they are low sugar they are pretty healthy. Remember fruit has plenty of sugar in it already. The good thing about leathers is you’re keeping the fibre and intensifying the taste.