Wednesday 3 August 2011

Pear and cinnamon fruit leather...

 


 Today I have been mostly dealing with the fruit from the tree in the garden, well one of them anyway. Hubby thought it was best to collect it all and present it to me on Sunday, he did so with a large impressed grin on his face as if he had been out hunting and gathering for us all. I really didn't have the heart but do anything but smile and say thanks you although in the back of my mind all I could think  was ' and what on earth am I going to do with that little lot.
   It was mostly pears and apples so i was at a loss really, we try not to do puddings too much and Roo is not quite old enough to start with puree's and i don't have a big enough freezer to keep that much of it till he is. So after much searching (and asking other people), I decided to try and make some fruit leather. It is something that is now coming back into vogue it seems. The reason I chose to do it however is that it fits in nicely with our hobby. Which I somehow so far have not even mentioned here, strangely, until now of course.
    We are indeed re-enactors, 17th century Civil War stuff mostly, tho hubby also does 18th Century stuff now and then also and quite fancy being a pirate sometime soon. I also was 'silent viking with a lucet' a few times and doubtless will be again if I am needed.
     Anyway I digress, the fruit leather is something that has been done since the middle ages in some form or another and it is just the thing for using up fruit from the garden. Although it tended to be made from 'fallers', I have used our fruit as I didn't know what else to do with it. It basically is pureed fruit with honey that is dried out in the oven for hours until it turns into stuff that looks like modern day 'winders'. I have no idea how mine will turn out as it has only just gone into the oven. Seemingly so far so good however!
      The recipe goes like this;-
500g of cooking apples/pears
juice of a lemon
some cinnamon tiny amount of vanilla
6 tablespoons of clear honey

chop the peeled/cored fruit and add the lemon juice (stops the fruit discolouring) and the cinnamon and stew slowly for twenty minutes (ish)
push the pulp through a sieve to get a puree
add the honey
pour into greaseproof paper lined baking tray spread thinly
bake in a barely on oven for 10 to 12 hours ..

Wish me luck!

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