Strawberry fruit leather, 3 ingredients

The packaged fruit snack is mostly added sugar and dye, and this is the honest version, one you can hand a child or tuck into a bag for the day. 3 ingredients, blended and dried slow until the fruit turns into a soft, chewy strip. It is nearly all hands off time, the kind of recipe that fits easily into a full week. You set it going and come back to something finished.

Strawberries are a source of vitamin C, involved in the everyday repair of connective tissue and in supporting immune function. Drying the fruit gently keeps it whole rather than cooking it hard, and the applesauce and lemon round out the flavor without any added sugar, so the sweetness stays the fruit's own.

This is real fruit, slowly concentrated, nothing else. Cut the finished leather into strips and store them with care, and when you reach for one, notice that you made it. A small, clean snack you made yourself is a quiet kind of nourishment.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups strawberries
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 1/4 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

Blend the strawberries, applesauce, and lemon juice until completely smooth. Spread the puree in an even, thin layer on a dehydrator sheet.

Dehydrate at 160 F for about 8 hours, until the surface is dry to the touch and no longer tacky.

Cut the dried leather into strips. Store it airtight for up to a week, with wax paper between the layers so the pieces do not stick. Do not roll the finished leather in wax paper for presentation; the shreds embed in the fruit and the dried edges crack.

You can swap the strawberries for cherries, mango, pineapple, raspberries, kiwi, or a blackberry-blueberry mix. Skip banana, which browns, and citrus, which goes too pulpy.

Oven variation

If you do not have a dehydrator, spread the puree thin on a wax-paper-lined or parchment-lined sheet and bake at 200 F for 4 to 6 hours, until fully dry. Reposition the sheet partway through if your oven has hot spots so the leather dries evenly. These times are from the source and not re-tested, so check it as it goes.

*Adapted from a-clean-plate*