When I found a short recipe in ‘Parents’ magazine for homemade fruit roll ups, I got excited to try a new, sweet, and SIMPLE snack to replace those spendy fruit leathers that we indulge in from time to time.
In prep, this was super easy. I simply bought a bunch of strawberries, cut off their leaves, measured out about 4 cups and threw them in my food processor. Then I mixed in 2 tablespoons of honey, spread it out onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put the whole thing into my 200 degree oven. The directions stated that after 3 to 4 hours I should have my homemade fruit leather.
Before Cooking
Well, 4 hours came and went. By 11pm (Hour 5) I found myself in bed and setting my alarm for 11:30pm. 11:30pm…still no luck. 12am was my last straw. At 12, I took the whole thing out and just decided to wait until morning. I am not someone who can sacrifice sleep as my 2 year old loves mornings and is usually up by 6:30am.
The only good news is that we used the extra pureed strawberries on ice cream the nice before and pancakes in the morning.
THREE more hours, yes 3, the next day and the fruit leather looked ready to go. Did I have too many strawberries? Is my electric oven faulty? Other recipes I found online used a lower oven temp and suggested much longer periods of time (8 to 10 hours).
All I know is that by the time we had our final product, they tasted yummy but I didn’t think the energy spent checking them was worth it.
Finally out of the oven!
All rolled up
Stretch Fruit Island Co offers 30 fruit strips for $13.99. That’s about 46 cents/strip. I spent $6 and got about 24 strips of the same size. That’s 24 cents/strip. Wow! I saved more than 20 cents per strip…but this doesn’t factor in time and both stove energy and human energy. My vote is maybe to try it once more with some great farmer’s market berries and just be prepared to keep the oven on a LONG time.
Have you ever tried to make something from scratch that you would normally just buy? Was it worth your money, time, and energy?
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It looks tasty but definitely seems to require patience.
I go back and forth with homemade yogurt. It is good and inexpensive but I like the convenience of store bought too.