The Orange Strainer: Homemade Fruit Roll-Ups

Recipe: Homemade Fruit Roll-Ups

Source: Guest Recipe on 100 Days of Real Food

Time: 10 minutes prep, 4-6 hours in the oven (details below)

Ease: 2

Taste: 8

Leftover Value: 10

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!!

Growing up I always brought a packed lunch to school. The only time I bought lunch was on Fridays--pizza day. My packed lunch was never, ever exciting. I had a choice between a cheese sandwich and peanut butter and jelly. A cheese sandwich always seemed wrong to me. It just begs to be slabbed with butter and fried. That left me with peanut butter and jelly. Everyday. For thirteen years. Can you see why I'm so intrigued by unique and different foods now that I'm an adult?

After reading the above link/recipe, I guess I am a little fortunate. Of the few snack choices my brothers and I were allowed fruit roll-ups (the authentic ones) were on the okay-to-eat list. My mother wasn't so insane about what we ate that she forced us to eat the leathery knock off brands that were actually good for you.

Of course, she was insane enough about our health to have chips, cupcakes, and any prepackaged crackers or cookies on the things-you-can't-have list.

I would have given anything for Dunkaroos. Or the little crackers with cheese spread.

That said, fruit roll-ups are near and dear to my heart. You would think I had grown to hate them, but surprisingly today I can still enjoy all of the semi-healthy foods my mother forced me to include in my packed lunch.

However, the cup of noodles I would sometimes trade my peanut butter and jelly sandwich for is another story.

Making your own fruit roll-ups is extremely easy, but requires that you be present in your home/kitchen for at least three hours straight.

I first made the recipe following the directions to use mango, then I made it a second time and changed the mango to strawberries and the lime to lemon.* The recipe calls for 3-4 cups of peeled mango and then states that should be about two mangoes. No mango that you pick up at your local farmer's market will produce that amount of fruit. My advice is to go for frozen fruit. It's so much easier. Just make sure you buy it without any added sugars.

*You'll see pictures of both throughout this post.

After pureeing the ingredients together, the mixture should be poured out onto a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment.

This is the most difficult part of the recipe. The mixture doesn't exactly smooth itself out for you. It is also hard to gauge just how thick to spread it.

I found that tapping the mixture out with the side of my spatula was the best way to get it to evenly spread. The keyword is even. If it is too thin in some spots and thicker in others then it will dry out in the thinner spots.

And that's just not okay.

Because I don't own a dehydrator and don't plan on adding one to the abundant kitchen machinery I already have, I had to go the stove route. The recipe states it could go for six to twenty hours set on 175.

To this I say, no. No. No. No.

On my first attempt (with the Mango Lime Fruit Roll-Ups) I had them in the oven for roughly four hours on 170. I had to leave the house for a few hours, so I turned the oven off and left them in the oven. I figured they would still continue to dry out as the heat left the oven and that I could turn the oven back on when I came home.

But when I returned they were perfect.

When I made my Strawberry Lemon Fruit Roll-Ups I was home the entire time. They had been in the same oven for about three hours and I figured they still had at least another hour to go when I checked on them and realized they were totally dried out.

One pan was okay, but not fantastic.

But the other did this:

And this...

It didn't taste horrible, it just wasn't a fruit roll-up. It would have been a nice frill to add to the top of a smoothie or a fruity sundae.

The point here is, don't be like me. Check your fruit roll-ups frequently, at least every half hour. Tap the top with your finger and if it is still a little wet, it needs to go longer.

Another thing I didn't do, but intend to tomorrow when I make another batch, is to rotate the pans from the racks they are on and from the way they are facing in the oven.

Hopefully then this won't happen.

Thankfully my first attempt went really well showing me that it can be done and they can taste delicious. The Mango Lime Fruit Roll-Ups are very tart, and the Strawberry Lemon Fruit Roll-Ups were my attempt to find a sweeter flavor.