Preserving Fruit as a leather provides tasty fruit snacks all year round

Hugh & Fiona Osborne grow as much of their own food as possible and to ensure tasty foods all year around, they use lots of preservation techniques. Fruit leather is an easy technique to produce tasty snacks from fruit for many months to come

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THE PERFECT SNACK

You might not have heard of fruit leather, but we bet that you have heard of the chewy, dried fruit snacks in the supermarket either sold as “sticks” or thin strips that are rolled into a spiral or “winders”. They are marketed as healthy snacks for kids. They are simply forms of fruit leathers and we don't see why they should be just kids treats. We love them too. Fiona practically inhales the fruit leather she loves it so much!

The problem with the fruit leather products sold in supermarkets is that they either have preservatives added or a lot of sugar. Companies that are going to put foods like these on the supermarket shelves, need to know that the food will have a significant shelf life. If consumers want a short shelf life, they'll buy a banana or an apple so it must be capable of being put in a cupboard and be safe to eat many weeks if not months later.

FLAVOUR COMBINATIONS

The great thing about making fruit leather yourself, is that you're not stuck with other people's choices of flavour. You can experiment and combine what is both seasonal and available. Our only rule is to add one high sugar fruit to the mix to deliver that extra level of preservation, over and above the dehydration. We normally add strawberry as we have many different varieties that give us strawberries for around 6 months of the year

We have found through experimentation that a combination of sweet and sour works best. Our favourites include:

• Gooseberries and strawberries

• Rhubarb and strawberries

• Raspberries, red currant and strawberries.