Whenever my kids go grocery shopping with me they always ask for rollups and I always say no. ‘But why Mum? My friends have them all the time’. I’m on my mission to live a healthier life and one key area is teaching my children why certain foods aren’t good for them. Over the years I have just said no and not really explained why. But they have watched me yoyo diet and put on weight. They’ve seen how being overweight made me feel. I want them to learn young that too much sugar is unhealthy and unnecessary.
When I visited Melbourne a few months ago, my friend grabbed some apple leather from her purse and started snacking on it. She offered me some and I loved it. She explained to me the beauties of making her own fruit leather and how much her kids liked it. She uses a dehydrator to make hers. Instead I made some Strawberry Fruit Leather using the oven.
New note: I am now making my rollups in a dehydrator, can make more at once. I purchased my 9 tray Dehydrator here.
Attempt number one was a complete fail, I burnt it. I was following a recipe that said 1 punnet of strawberries, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Just tasting the burnt pieces I could tell the recipe needed tweaking.
I was determined to make it work, so went back to the grocery store and purchased some more strawberries. I blitzed one punnet of strawberries and 1 tablespoon of sugar in my new super cute mini KitchenAid Food Chopper*.
This is a nifty little chopper, it’s much like a food processor, but smaller, lighter and easier to clean.
Spread the puree onto a lined baking tray, using a spatula to spread evenly
Bake in the oven on the lowest temperature (mine is 60 degrees, fan forced) for 3 hours, or until all the fruit is dried and not sticky. I used a pizza cutter to slice and stored in an airtight container
The kids LOVED them and we have made them several times since, 2nd time I strained the strawberry puree through a sieve to remove some of the seeds.
Print
Homemade Strawberry Rollups Fruit Leather
- Total Time: 3 hours 10 mins
- Yield: 6 1x
Description
Healthy lunchbox snack for the kids
Ingredients
- 1 punnet strawberries
- 1 tablespoon, castor sugar (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to lowest temperature
- Line a baking tray with baking paper
- Remove the leaves from the strawberries
- Place strawberries and sugar into mini chopper, and blitz until strawberries are smooth
- Pour strawberry puree onto baking tray
- Place in oven and cook for 3 hours or until the mix is dried and not sticky
- Chop into desired size and place in an airtight container
Notes
One punnet of strawberries only made 6 average sized roll ups. The oven was on for 3 hours. One would say, why bother? But I think knowing what is in these snacks for the kids is a great benefit and worth the time and effort. Double the quantity, 2 baking trays in the oven to ensure you are maximising all the space you have available in the oven.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 3 hours
- Category: [url href="https://theorganisedhousewife.com.au/category/recipes/lunchbox-recipes/"]Lunchbox Snack[/url]
* I was given this product for editorial consideration
