Blackberry Fruit Leathers

Making blackberry fruit leathers should be a fairly easy process…unless you’re me and fail to spray the plastic pan and spend half an hour removing one of the fruit leathers from the tray!  I know not to make that mistake again.  Thankfully I only had one plastic tray, so the second fruit leather was on plastic wrap and was much easier to remove.  The only trick with the plastic wrap is making sure none if it remains stuck to the fruit leather.  I found the recipe for the blackberry fruit leathers in a book I had on drying and canning foods.  It took me about an hour on each end of the drying process to make the fruit leathers, but if you remember to spray any plastic trays you use and don’t have trouble deciding whether to leave the seeds in or not, that should probably cut that time in half on either end!

Below is the recipe for blackberry fruit leathers.  You can also make fruit leathers out of different fruits with different proportions of sugar.  For one cup of fruit: blackberries and Santa Rosa plums—2½ tbsp. sugar; strawberries—1 tbsp. sugar; raspberries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and other plums—1½ tbsp. sugar.  For all non-berry fruits, heat only to just below boiling point (about 180 degrees Fahrenheit) instead of to boiling.

Blackberry Fruit Leathers

Prep Time: 30-45 minutes  Cook Time: ~20 hours

Ingredients: 4 cups of blackberries; 10 tbsp. sugar (5/8 cup)

Directions: Heat blackberries and sugar on stove until boiling and mixture looks syrupy.  Put in blender if needed.  Filter out some of the seeds if desired.  Spray plastic tray if using dryer and pour berries on ~1/4 inch thick.  Can also dry in the sunshine on plastic wrap.  Remove and roll after dry (about 20 hours).

 

In the dryer and before the removal process.