DIY Toddler Food: Fruit Leather

By Hillary

I hate spending money on individually-portioned snack food because I feel like I'm paying more for the wrapping than the food (and I end up feeling guilty about the pile of garbage I'm left with.) I especially hate spending money on snack food that is easy enough to make myself (don't even get me started on my husband who buys bags of popped popcorn that costs ten times more than buying kernels and popping it himself.)

All of this is to say that I cringe when I buy fruit leather for my kid so I tried to make my own.

Choose your fruit! I used four pears (skin on,) two apples (peeled,) and five carrots (not a fruit but I'm desperate to get my kid to eat vegetables and will try anything.)

Chop it all up and put in a pot over medium heat.

Add your spice / sweetener! I added the juice of a lemon and a couple tablespoons of apple juice (so the fruit wouldn't burn to the bottom of the pan before its juices were released.) You can add sugar, honey, cinammon, whatever you want.

Cook until your fruit and veg are soft and then puree until smooth.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spread the puree evenly over top.

My oven's lowest temperature is 175F on the convection setting so that's what I went with. It took about eight hours for my leather to be fully cooked. You want the top to be matte and not sticky.

Slice it up and store in the fridge.

Will I make it again? Probably. It tastes great. I like that I know exactly what went into it. It took a lot of time to make but it was mostly unattended so it wasn't time-consuming. Overall I'd call my fruit leather experiment a success.

(Photo from my overused Instagram account)