GlutenfreeSally

Last year Hubby planted Rhubarb and this year we had a bumper crop. I wanted to experiment with it and I’ve always wanted to have a go at making fruit leathers, so I decided to make rhubarb ones.

Fruit Leathers are basically pureed fruit that is dehydrated until it’s dry, but not brittle, then cut into strips. A bit like Fruit Winders by Kelloggs, but without all the weird schism that they add.

I found a recipe by Waitrose [ click here for recipe ] it uses quite a lot of sugar, but I thought I’d try this first then see how it goes. In their recipe it also has Grenadine, which is supposed to give it a slight pink colour. I didn’t have Grenadine, so I used Cassis instead, although not sure it did anything to the colour!

The Waitrose recipe dried the puree in the oven, I wanted to use my dehydrator, so I spread the puree over two non-stick sheets and set the dehydrator to 45 degrees. I let it run overnight, for about 12 hours, but it was still sticky, I then increased the temperature to 60 degrees and run for another 5 hours. By this time it was ‘peelable’ off the non-stick sheets, but still sticky, not leather like as I was expecting.

So here’s the taste test – chewy and very sweet and sour, with a hint of rhubarb. It reminded me a bit of Tanfastic Haribo Sweets, without the coating of whatever it is they coat them with ( never liked them myself).

So I cut them into strips and rolled them in greaseproof paper, to stop them sticking to themselves!

And Voila!

I shall call them ‘Rhubarb Straps’!

I will have another go at making fruit leather. My next batch will be as close to natural as possible and without the use of sugar. We’ll see if it works out this time!