Fruit leather dehydrator not required. It’s true. When you make fig fruit jerky, it might just become part of your weekly meal prep for an easy DIY snack.
Which Kinds of Figs for Fruit Jerky
What we think you will most appreciate about this easy DIY fruit leather is how with a few simple tweaks you can make it your own. Start with Orchard Choice or Sun-Maid California Dried Figs—either Mission Dried Figs or Golden Dried Figs are great. Both make the fruit roll-up unFIGettable. Golden Dried Figs offer a milder nutty sweetness where Mission Dried Figs bring a more intense, deep sweetness. You can’t go wrong.
Customize Fruit Roll-Ups
Something else to try out is to swap in orange zest or lime zest, but you’ll want to keep the lemon juice in the recipe to balance out the sweetness.
Add whole spices to the cooking liquid to give it an extra boost of flavor. Try star anise, cinnamon sticks, cloves, a vanilla bean, cardamom pods or even peppercorns. Whatever you add, fish it out before pulverizing cooked fruit.
When is Fruit Leather Done
What you are looking for is a tacky feel—not completely dry but not wet either. We find that cooking the fruit jerky at 170F for about an hour and a half is just right. What you’re looking for is a fruit jerky that when completely cooled gets cut into long strips and when rolled up adheres to the parchment underneath.
Fruit Leather Dehydrator Optional
You can certainly make fruit leather in a dehydrator, but it’s really optional. You can buy fruit leather inserts for dehydrators that are round and in which you spread out the fruit puree as above, but not everyone has a dehydrator. Instead, turn your oven onto its lowest setting of 170F and you can dry the fruit puree out that way. The high pectin in dried figs and also in the lemon zest help the fruit jerky gel.
How to Store Fruit Leather
Store cooled fruit leather rolled up strips in a sealed container for a week—if it lasts that long!
Fig Fruit Jerky
Equipment
- Food Processor
Ingredients
- 1 lemon
- 8 ounces chopped Orchard Choice or Sun-Maid California Figs , stems removed
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/4 cup water
Instructions
- Zest and juice the lemon. In a saucepan, stir together figs, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and water. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down to simmer for 15 minutes, until most of the liquid cooks out.
- Transfer to a food processor. Puree until smooth. Preheat oven to 170F. Line a half baking sheet with parchment. Using a spatula or offset spatula, spread out the fig puree into an even layer, about 1/8-inch thick.
- Cook in the oven for 2 hours. (Top should be tacky—a little sticky and not completely dry). Cool completely.
- Cut the parchment into long thin strips of fig fruit leather, then roll it up.
4 Comments on “Fig Fruit Leather (Dehydrator Not Required)”
Maybe what he meant was that it should say “The high pectin in the dried figs and the lemon zest helps the fruit jerky gel.” It’s an awkwardly worded sentence. You shouldn’t begin a sentence with a conjunction. It’s a good recipe, although I used lemon juice and no zest. Eating lemon zest is not very pleasant IMO.
Thanks for your feedback John—we’re glad to hear you made the fig leather and enjoyed it.
Good information. Have someone proof your text before you post.
“Because of the high pectin in dried figs and also in the lemon zest”.
Need more information on adding spices.
Hi Ric- Thanks for your comment. This is a base recipe that can be customized as you like with spices. We kept the recipe broad to show the method. As for the sentence you reference, the whole sentence reads “Because of the high pectin in dried figs and also in the lemon zest, it helps the fruit jerky gel.” We hope that helps clarify.