Do you crave sweet snacks during the summer? If so, consider drying pieces of fresh fruit in the oven to create your own healthier versions of store bought fruit snacks or fruit leather. These homemade dried fruits are the exact same as a piece of fresh fruit except they have been dehydrated of all water by cooking at a low temperature in the oven for a long period of time.You can ‘dry’ a variety of different fruits, not just pineapples, like we created this month in the picture below. In this post, we also made dried apple chips and tested out dried lemons. Drying fruit is a great way to make them portable for an on-the-go lifestyle while still maintaining its nutritional value!
Tropical fruits like pineapples are a July Foods of the Month. To make these dried pineapple flowers, remove the prickly parts from a ripe pineapple by slicing them off with a knife. Next, cut the fruit into very thin slices (the thinness of the slices is very important! The thicker the slices, the longer the baking time). Transfer fruit slices to a nonstick baking tray, and bake in the oven at 225 degrees for about an hour. Remove from oven when they look dry (they won’t be shiny) and let cool before serving. We love how these look like flowers!
