Easy Fruit Leather Recipe

Fruit Leather Recipe for Kids

Make heart-shaped fruit leather with this fun and easy recipe!

Ingredients:
Grapes * Note you also can substitute your favorite fruit!
Water (2 cups)
Sugar (2 tbs optional)

Step 1: Stem and rinse your grapes.

If you buy grapes from the store, they will be much easier and come right off the stem. If you are lucky enough to have a friend with a vine or industrious enough to have grown them yourself, you’ll probably have a variety with more delicate stems which require a little more work. This is your only chance to get rid of the stems so do it now!

Step 2: Smash ’em. Pour all the grapes into a big pot. Add the water and sugar. About the sugar. 2 tablespoons in all those grapes is so little that it probably didn’t need to be added at all. Now smash with a potato smasher till all the grapes are broken. Don’t think mashed potatoes. Think back to that grape you stepped on a while back. Smashed grapes. Don’t overthink it. Just smash till you don’t feel like smashing anymore.

Step 3: Boil for a while. We boiled for about 20 minutes.

Step 4: Strain. Pour the pot over a strainer into a big bowl, a pitcher, or another pot. This is your grape juice. It’s soooooo good! Resist the urge to smash the stuff in the strainer to get extra juice out. You will get plenty just by letting it all sit and drip out and if you smash it, you’ll get pulpy juice. Pulpy juice isn’t bad, but that pulp could be making more fruit leather!

Step 5: Puree. Dump all the pulp in the blender and blend it till it’s as smooth as possible.

When it’s just right, it will start to stick to the blender.

Step 6: Simmer. Dump the blended pulp back into the pot and simmer it low till all the liquid is gone. The longer you let the pulp strain (step 4) the less you’ll be simmering. You’ll know it’s ready when there are no longer any puddles of liquid floating on the top.

Step 7: Bake. Pour what is now a nasty greyish sludge out onto a silpat mat on a baking sheet or parchment paper and spread it around with a spatula. The thinner you spread it, the faster it will cook. It will magically turn a lovely grapey shade of deep purple while baking.

Bake it at 170 for 4 hours. And voila! Fruit leather! You can cut it into a heart shape for Valentine’s Day, roll it into fruit roll-ups, or cut it into rectangles for a simple snack.

For more kid-friendly recipes, please check out our Pinterest page!

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