These raw roll-ups retain their vitamins and minerals for a healthy and delicious alternative to standard fruit roll-ups. They use simple ingredients – no artificial, colours, flavours, or preservatives added! It’s easy to make and versatile, as you can come up with your favourite fruit combinations.
Fruit leather is a fantastic way to use up mature fruit or excess produce that needs to be used up in a hurry. It’s also a great way to save from food spoilage.
It’s best if you have a dehydrator for this recipe, but an oven or rectangular air fryer on low heat can also be used. Some fruit leather recipes cook the fruit before dehydrating it for a smoother texture and glossier appearance. This recipe, however, ensures you maintain nutrients by dehydrating the fruits whilst raw. Just make sure you keep the temperature below 48°C to retain its raw state.
This recipe is so simple to make and you can get creative to try different fruit combinations, like I did. What I have found through all of my experimenting with different fruits, adding chia seeds, and trying various thicknesses, I can say that adding banana into the fruit combinations helps to bind the leather (because of the starch) so it doesn’t crack too easily. My favourite leather combos were 100% banana and chia seed, blueberry, pear, and a small amount of banana. 100% apple and chia combinations worked too.
I also added chia seeds to some of the recipes because of their ability to help bind the leather. Although it also makes the leather grittier in both appearance and texture. I think it’s a matter of preference whether to add chia seeds to your fruit blend. Omitting the chia seeds works just fine, but I have found it can be more brittle and easier to break, especially if spread on the trays thinly. Adding chia seeds is a good idea especially if using fruits that are less starchy like apples and pears.
I tried to add a carrot in one of the recipe combos but it ended up not binding too well and there were a lot of cracks in the end product. This is the only combination that did this.
Dehydrating the leather should take approx. 8 hours. At around the 4-hour mark, I swap tray positions and place the leather which is still the wettest closest to the base. My dehydrator is the rounded type with an empty circle in the middle.
I used wax paper to spread the fruit puree onto and they peeled off fine easily enough after the leather was left to sit for a few hours. Non-stick silicone mats are an excellent idea and reduce wastage.
Raw Fruit Leather Roll-ups
Equipment
- 1 Dehydrator
- 1 Blender
- 1 Silicone drying mat or baking paper
Ingredients
- 3 cups your fruit or fruits of choice
- 1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)
Instructions
- Chop all fruit into approx. 1-inch cubes or rounds.
- Place into the blender with chia seeds and blend on high until it becomes a puree.
- Using a spatula, spread evenly out onto your dehydrator tray, about 1cm in thickness.
- Dehydrate for 8 hours total time. Halfway through the process and if you have multiple trays, rotate them with the wettest tray closest to the base (unless your dehydrator design features even drying).
- Once the fruit is completely dry, you may remove it from the mat or baking paper. If it is too brittle or difficult to remove because of possible breakage, leave it at room temperature for a day or two to settle. It will reabsorb moisture, enabling you to easily remove from the paper and roll and cut into your desired shapes and sizes.
