I had a lot of favorite snacks growing up.  As a child, I remember we always had strawberry fruit roll-ups around the house.  I loved them so much it was ridiculous.  Years later, I was at the grocery store one day and decided to buy some for old times sake.  I got my fruit roll-ups home and unraveled one in anticipation.  I was disappointed to find that the roll was full of punch out shapes, maybe animals or something?  That wasn’t how I remembered them!  I didn’t want to eat a strawberry giraffe, I just wanted my chewy, flavor-packed fruit roll.  Later I began discovering other versions of fruit leather in the store which felt less… processed (because fruit animals are processed).  But obviously they’re all processed, shapes or not! So I decided to do some research into how to make fruit leather and was surprised to learn that it’s pretty simple!  It takes awhile but the resulting treat is very healthy.

I only added one tablespoon of sugar to this cinnamon apple fruit leather and you could probably omit it completely or substitute maple syrup or Stevia.  It’s chewy, flavorful and I can rip the fruit from the plastic in long strips like I did as a child.  No giraffes!

Note: if you have a large rectangular dehydrator, you can use that instead of the oven.

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