Homemade Fruit Roll Ups

Hi there, sorry I have been away for the last week. It has been very busy & I hope to share why this coming week! But now that it is Saturday I have a few moments to catch up on some other things that we have been doing lately.
In South Carolina, Tim ate a specific brand of fruit snacks from WalMart every single day. When we moved here to Washington we decided not to continue to support the WalMart corporation and, therefore have no access to WalMart brand fruit snacks. That left Tim buying fruit roll up and fruit by the foot brand snacks. All three of these are just food coloring, chemicals & sugar. So I found recipes on 17 Apart and Our Best Bites and put together a recipe that turned out really well! So far I can't find the perfect length of cooking between gooey fruit & too-crispy-to-roll fruit... but I am still experimenting!

Homemade Fruit Roll Ups
2 cups of ripe fruit - I used peaches, strawberries and raspberries for different batches
honey - to taste
parchment paper or plastic wrap
preheat oven to your lowest setting, mine is 170F

Raspberries

Peaches and Strawberries

This picture of washing the berries isn't all that necessary, but I thought they looked very pretty in the red colander.

I put the cut up strawberries and peaches into the blender with a good bit of honey & then added more after I blending it together & tasted. The more ripe your fruit, the less honey you will need to add. Next time I am going to cook the berries in a sauce pan for a little bit before I puree them, I think it will bring out more flavor.

I made a second batch with just raspberries.

Blend until the consistency is smooth, it is ok if the mixture is thick, but you can add water as needed to get the smooth texture you want. I had to add about half a cup.

Once blended you can strain out the seeds, but I recommend leaving them in for texture.

I did the peach and strawberry batch on plastic wrap, usually you wouldn't put plastic wrap in the oven, but at this low of a temperature it will not melt. Between the plastic wrap and parchment paper I preferred the plastic wrap; however, I plan to purchase a silicone baking mat soon. Other bloggers have said that it works best & it makes sense.

Here are the raspberries on the parchment paper, no matter what you use as backing you want to smooth the mixture thinly and evenly with a spatula and then bake for 5-6 hours. The first batch I did was not ready before we went to bed, so I simply turned the oven off & started back in the morning. Another blogger recommended it & it worked just fine!

When they were finished, I cut them into strips and wrapped them in fresh parchment paper. I taped the ends - but it didn't hold well. I like 17 Apart's idea of using twine, but I was in a rush & didn't bother.

Tim has been eating these just as fast as the store bought ones & these are actually healthy!

I was a little skeptical at first, but these fruit roll ups were not hard to make - even though they take a long time, there is very little hands on time. Do be aware that they do not taste the same as fruit roll ups, it is much more fruity and natural, but I think they are better!

Let me know what you think!

~Katie