Polka dot fruit leathers

I saw a link to these on Pinterest, and had to try making my own! My children adore fruit leathers. I genuinely didn't expect them to be such a hit. I've made them from blackberries, raspberries, apples, pears and rhubarb, and they've always been wolfed down, and for bonus points they also keep for AGES. I bought my dehydrator mainly with this in mind, but it had never occured to me to mess about with patterns!

 

 

I started with 4 Bramley apples, cooked until soft, blitzed in the food processor, and sweetened with 2 dessertspoons on honey (they're a bit sticky, so I'd probably cut this down to 1-and-a-half in future). Also half a punnet of raspberries, heated until pulpy and shoved through the mouli to remove the pips. And finally a small can of peach slices, blitzed.

 Ta-dah! One tray of apple puree with raspberry and peach splodgey bits. I did try to pipe neat little dots but the puree was too thick for the nozzle and I got a bit impatient and gave up.

I dried it at 60C for about 9 hours. The result was pretty gorgeous! The leather was transfered to a piece of greaseproof paper, rolled into a sausage and then cut into sections (probably about 10).

The smallest madam likes to pretend that her fruit leathers are a funny tongue. every.single.time :)

I'm now wondering what else I can try! Zig zags? Stripes? Marbled? If my tomatoes grow well this year (they didn't last year) I may even try the savoury tomato and celery salt version.