I had picked a bunch of Rhubarb in my garden to make some rhubarb sorbet with, but this morning I had fruit leather on the mind. The rhubarb puree was sitting in my fridge all weekend and well, I was just too lazy to put my ice cream maker in the freezer. I should have just made rhubarb granita with it but I didn't. I'm glad I waited to make this!
One time I tried making fruit leather with a silicon mat and that just made a huge mess and ruined my sheet pan. The key to fruit leather is to use parchment paper. Parchment paper helps you when it comes time to cutting the fruit leather. You can easily make the fruit roll-ups as long as you want and just use scissors to cut it. I might be making another batch of rhubarb fruit leather tomorrow. I've got so much of it to use up in my garden.
The process of making fruit leather is pretty easy. I heated up 4 cups of rhubarb, 1 cup of sugar, and some lemon zest and cooked it in a pan for about 10 minutes. Then I used my emersion hand blender to puree all the fruit.
You could use a blender or food processor too. I have all 3 kitchen appliances in my household and all three of them come in handy.
Please note that some ovens might take longer than the specified time below. If the fruit hasn't turned into the leather after the desired time below continue to cook it. Not all ovens are equally the same. 🙂
Rhubarb Fruit Leather
Ingredients
4 cups of chopped Rhubarb
1 cup of sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
Instructions
1. Cook all ingredients in sauce pan for 10 minutes. Use an emersion blender or food processor to puree the fruit.
2. Line a cookie sheet pan with parchment paper and spread the fruit mixture onto the sheet tray. Make sure that the puree is spread out evenly on the pan. Cook the fruit leather at 175 degrees for 5 hours or until the fruit has become stiff. When it is ready, you should be able to peel it apart like you would with fruit roll ups.
Jenna says
No, I have not tried to do this in a smoker but if you do report back please!
Kasie says
Has anyone tried to do this in a smoker? I'm curious if it would taste good? I might do it anyways don't need my oven heating up my house all day in a heat wave.
Mary says
Anyone ever try to combine rhubarb and banana to make fruit leather? I am going to experiment. I don't bake, smoothies aren't a real thing in this house, frozen bananas are piling up, so I thought leather might work?
Jenna says
Faahrenheit
Sue says
Is that 175 degrees CELSIUS or FAHRENHEIT please?
Jenna says
Thanks for the feedback Elaine! I will try making again to see if I can adjust the recipe a bit.
Elaine Marie says
I tried it. It did peel away from the parchment paper as hoped, but it took much longer to become "leather" than predicted, presumably because the recipe uses a pretty hefty amount of sugar and it was a rather humid evening when I put it in the oven.
Jenna says
I'm sorry this didn't turn out for you. The problem is probably the oven temp. It wasn't hot enough. It is best to use an oven thermometer to make sure the temperature is correct.
Steph says
The puree tasted good, like tart applesauce. We baked this for 8 hours and it was still not dry in the middle. The ends were dry but we had to throw it all away because we couldn't get it the dried part off the parchment paper. any tips to getting if off parchment paper?
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