Fruit Leather: Fruit Raw-Ups

I can't express enough how much I love fresh juicy berries in the Summer. I can simply have fresh berries by themselves as a snack or mono meal,  making smoothies or creating delicious healthy snacks out of them.

I just got a big box of organic strawberries (they are ones of dirty dozen list. It's best to get the organic ones) for such a deal from Trader Joe's and am going to have some fun making some delicious tangy fruit leather, add some spiciness in there if you are like me.          

Speaking of the word "leather", someone points it out to me that it doesn't sounds so appetizing as food and suggests me to call "Fruit Roll-Ups"!!    Hmmm.. Honestly I don't see any good health benefits why I would tie this healthy delicious snack with sugary unhealthy snack brand - no offend if you love that brand!! But let me call this healthy delicious strawberry snack FRUIT RAW UPs!!

Recipe:

Ingredients

1 lbs of fresh organic strawberries, rinsed and stemed

2-4 tbsp liquid sweetener, (agave, maple syrup, honey, coconut nectar). Sometime, when you are lucky, the fresh berries are already sweet to begin with so you don't have to add much sweetener

2 tsp - 1 tbsp lemon juice. Start from little amount first. Sometime strawberries can get really tangy. 

If you like to make it spicy like I do, add 1/8 tsp of cayenne pepper, 1/4 tsp paprika and a pinch of salt.

Instruction

1. Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender or a food processor until smooth. Taste it, you may want to add more sweetener or lemon juice, adjust it to your own liking.

2. Strain the puree. You can skip this part. I like to strain it for super smooth texture.

3. Line a sheet of parchment paper or silicone mat on a dehydrator tray (or baking sheet for the oven) and use an offset spatula to spread out the puree to about 1/8"-1/4" thick. (I'm not much serious about the thickness)

4. Dehydrate in a dehydrator at 125F for the first a few hours and reduce the temperature to 115F for another 6-8 hours (over night) Time varies, depends on how thick you spread the puree.

Roll up or cut into any shape you wish. Store them in a ziplock bagk.

Alternative way, if you don't have a dehydrator you can put the sheet in the oven at the lowest temperature for at least an hour on the upper rack.. Some ovens offer the  lowest temperature as 170F but some can go down to only 225F so please adjust the time accordingly. It might take up to 2-3 hours depends on the thickness of the the spread puree and the temperature.

I'll post more of Fruit Raw Ups recipes next week. Stay tuned for Blackberry Ginger and Banana Chocolate.

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