Dehydrator Fun - Fruit Leather

Dan and I love fruit roll ups and fruit leathers, but we really do not like their steep price tag. One of the reasons we bought the dehydrator last year was the possibility of making fruit leathers at home at a much cheaper price point. Yesterday was my first stab at making them in our dehydrator. Let me just tell you, it was so easy, I think we will be buying more leather trays for the dehydrator so that I can make more leather each time we hook up the dehydrator.

I tried my hand at both plain apple as well as apricot fruit leather. The plain apple was easy, and the apricot was just as easy to make. I peeled and cored the apples as well as cut them into some smaller pieces. They then went into the blender. I added a tiny bit of all natural apple juice into the blender to help it get started. Then, I blended the apples until they were a smooth, baby food like consistency. I found it easiest to start with a small amount of apples in the blender and then add to that amount and blend again. This seemed to be better than packing too much into the blender on the first try. I found myself having to stop and stir much more when I over packed the blender.

Once the apples were blended, I poured the puree onto a fruit leather sheet. Two important things were learned here. Make sure your leather sheets are already placed on the trays before filling them with puree. Although I did not make this mistake, I could tell that the puree would be everywhere when trying to transplant the flimsy try into the more sturdy drying rack. The second thing I learned is that putting a thin coating of oil onto the fruit leather sheet is a must. I forgot to do this with the first set of leather, and it is quite stuck down onto the sheet. The second one that I did remember to oil peels up quite easily.

Once I had one tray loaded with plain apple, I tossed in the pitted and cut apricot pieces into the blender along with some more peeled sliced apples for their pectin content. For the apricots, I left their skin on, and it seemed to add a nice texture to the puree. I placed that on the sheet and both went into the dehydrator. In the end they look like this picture here. I did over dry them a bit as I forgot to tell Dan to check them when he got home from work versus me shutting them off when I got home late that night from the dance studio. These first ones seem to have the texture of store bought fruit roll ups rather than a fruit leather, but hey I am not complaining. I love both kinds of dried fruits. I can see this is going to become a new habit around here, and I hope that the dehydrator and blender can keep up with our demand.

Happy 8/26 Day!

As most of you know from reading this blog, I am a volunteer tutor at 826 Valencia in San Francisco. It is a wonderful tutoring and writing program in the Mission district in the city, and it is also the only independent pirate supply store in the city! ;) I have to say that this is one of the most fun things I do all week. I go into the center and partner with with one, two, and even three kids to work on their homework together. It is all the fun parts of teaching that I miss and none of the stuff that I did not like about the teaching field. It is just pure fun. While the center has all sorts of great volunteers, it still needs money to operate. Now I am not usually one to go out and solicit people for money, but this is really a great place to put your extra cash if you have some. 826 National has chapters all over the United States that help out students with homework as well as in schools programs that help teachers do all those fun and enriching projects they would love to do but need extra hands for. We also do bookmaking field trips to get kids into the love of reading and writing. So, in celebration of 8/26 Day, you could help out the national organization by donating $10, $8.26 of which goes to us by texting "WRITE" to 20222, or give on line at http://www.826on826.org. It really is that simple. Spread the word if you are so inclined to help us out. If you choose the texting option, a one-time donation of $10.00 (an $8.26 donation and a $1.74 service fee) will be added to your mobile phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Messaging rates and additional fees may apply. All charges are billed by and payable to your mobile service provider. Service is available on most carriers. Donations are collected for the benefit of 826 by the Mobile Giving Foundation and subject to the terms found at www.hmgf.org/t. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to 20222; reply HELP to 20222 for help.

Also today, we are holding a Write-A-Thon at 826 Valencia from noon until 8:26 pm. I will be there writing for a while after tutoring before I head over to the Fat Chance studio. Some of you are wondering what this Write-a-Thon may be. Well, the fine people at 826 Valencia wrote the following about it:

"What is a "Write-a-thon," exactly? It's just like a marathon. Well, maybe not just like a marathon. Our ambitious, inspired, industrious writers will recruit friends, family members, housemates, and hairdressers to pledge to support them in their writing goal, be it two poems or 200 pages, at a suggested donation rate of $10 per page. Donors can choose to support writers in whole or in part—if your friend is going to write those 200 pages, you can pledge to support twenty of them, or ten, or two. It's entirely up to you!

We're going to write and write and write some more, for a grand total of eight hours and twenty-six minutes of writing frenzy. Pledge to support your favorite writer, or come join the whirlwind of writerly activity! This event is open to students, 826 Valencia volunteers, and the public. For details, please visit our website. Hope to see you later today!"

Well I am off for some quick sorting around the crafting studio before heading in to tutor, write, and go to class. Thanks for listening to my little speech about 826. It really means a lot to me. Check in tomorrow for some more dehydrating and canning fun.

Raisin Experiments

Things have been rather hot and steamy here in the Bay Area as we are experiencing a bit of a late summer heat wave. During this time, I have been scaling back the canning because it is no fun in the heat to stand over bubbling pots of hot liquids. I decided to try my hand at drying grapes into raisins. I love fresh raisins from the farmer's market, but often times I just cannot justify the expensive price tag. I thought that perhaps I could get similar results at home with my dehydrator as the grapes dried in the sun.

After a good washing, I decided to follow the guide book and blanch the grapes in boiling water. My dehydration book suggested a three minute dip in the water, but I think this was just too much. The skins of the grapes split open and the flesh started cooking. I think the next time I make raisins I will just not blanch them and see what color loss I have. The split skins made for a sticky finished product.

From there the grapes had to be plucked off of their stems and placed onto the drying sheets. This was made a bit harder due to not only the split skins but the searing heat the grapes retained long after being taken out of the water bath. The nice thing about making my own raisins though is that I can make sure there are no little pieces of stem still attached to the finished product. Nothing is more annoying than eating oatmeal or a cookie or other baked item and finding stems in your food.

The grapes were rather large, so the estimated drying time was quite off. It took nearly a full day for them to dry rather than the 10 hours the books predicted. There were also some still way too hydrated to store, so I just ate them immediately. I am not sure which type we are going to like better. The flame grapes have an almost candy like flavor and texture to them. It is more similar to a date rather than a raisin. I also love their bright pinkish purple color.

The black grapes look and taste more like commercially produced grapes. The biggest problem with them is the size. They were not dry for quite some time, and they also were quite sticky due to the split skins. They are, however, the nice dark color that grapes generally have. I will have to stir some into oatmeal soon to determine if I like them better. If I do, I will be buying end of the day grapes for the dehydrator soon.

I could not leave the canning completely behind. I did do a small batch of Brittany apricot jam yesterday. It was a hot job even in the morning. From there it was on to reorganizing the sewing room. There is a lot of sorting and putting away to be done after the big "renovation" that I did. I had to make room for the new computerized cutter, so furniture was cleared off and moved around the room. I like the new layout of the room much better than any of the other incarnations. The computer is now easier to use as the glare from the windows is no longer a factor, and the sewing table is closer to the windows for some much needed natural light. Now I just need to sort through all these little odds and ends that I have wanted to organize for some time. I think this requires a trip to the store for some organizational bins, my biggest weakness. There is a mess to clean and new software to learn. If you don't hear from me for a while it is because I am cutting up a storm with the new cutter!

Apple Syrup and Pancakes

Apple canning and preservation continues into this week, and while I am happy to be canning, I will be kind of glad to be done with apples soon. On Friday I dipped my toe into new territory, flavored syrup. I wanted to try my hand at making apple syrup without the addition of corn syrup to the mix. I started off by using one of the two gallon bags of apple cuttings from the freezer. To the bag of cuttings, I also added three whole apples to the pot.

I followed the same procedure as making juice for the apple jelly. I measured out the apple parts and added the proportional amount of water to the pot, brought it to a boil, and then simmered to for a full 25 minutes. From there I drained it all through the jelly bag. This time, it was quite a bit more substance in the bag with less juice since I used mostly peelings and cores and very little overall flesh. Also, I missed the jelly bag a bit when emptying the pot. I had to run the juice through another mesh to make sure I got all of the solids out of the juice.

I got around three cups of juice out of the cuttings and a few apples. It was more than I had hoped for, and the experimentation was on. I looked over several recipes from my books and settled on a method rather than an actual recipe over another. I picked a couple of good cinnamon sticks to add to the syrup and also lemon juice for color and acidity boosting. From there it was crossed fingers and hopes for a good result.

I made a sugar solution and then cooked it until I made a very thick syrup. I brought the sugar syrup to just under the soft ball stage of heating, 230 degrees F or 110 degrees C. (You may have to adjust for altitude depending on where you live.) This seemed like a rather dicey operation as I loathe sugar burns, and I was not too sure how the introduction of the room temperature apple juice to the super hot sugar syrup would react. I added in the cinnamon sticks first to cook for a bit and to loosen them up a bit for the short cooking of the syrup. Next, I slowly but constantly added in all the apple juice.

From this point, I brought the solution up to a boil again over high heat. I boiled this all together for five minutes, stirring occasionally. I then removed this from heat, added the juice of a lemon, and then I commenced the canning. I processed the jars for 10 minutes with a 1/4 inch head space. We opened one jar right away on Saturday morning to see how it all turned out. I was really pleased with the flavor of the syrup. It was not too sweet, and the apple flavor was the main star with cinnamon playing a supporting rather than starring role. I think that the next time I make this I would definitely cook the apple juice and syrup mixture together longer. I think the extra cook time would have helped make it more solid and a bit less runny. It was overall a great first attempt I think.

We ended up with five half pints of the syrup. It was great over apple pancakes with whipped cream and some extra cinnamon. I also plan on using it as a topping for apple cinnamon ice cream or it could be used to soak pieces of sponge cake or angel food cake in for a quick fall flavored dessert.

No Corn Syrup Apple Syrup
3 cups of apple cuttings
3 apples, washed and rough cut with only seeds removed
2 cinnamon sticks
2 1/2 cup sugar
5 cups water separated
1/8 cup lemon juice

To Prepare the Juice Using cuttings from apple canning earlier in the week and a few whole apples to equal 3 cups of apple parts or starting with fresh apples, select about one fourth under ripe and three fourths fully ripe tart apples. Sort, wash and remove stem and blossom ends. Do not pare of core. (I do remove all the seeds though.) Cut apples into small pieces. Add 3 cups water, cover and bring to a boil on high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until apples are soft. Extract the juice using a moistened jelly bag. This takes around 2 hours. If you want a clear juice, do not squeeze the bag. For clearer juice, refrigerate the overnight and skim off any solids that are in the juice. If using fresh apples, keep solids from the jelly bag to make apple butter.

After the juice is extracted, prepare canner jars and lids, In a clean stainless steel saucepan, combine sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat stirring to dissolve all the sugar. Cook the mixture until it creates a syrup and reaches the temperature of 230 degrees F or 110 degrees C, adjusting for altitude. Add cinnamon sticks to the mixture and cook for a minute. Slowly and constantly add the apple juice to the sugar syrup. Return to a boil and boil for 5 minutes or until a thickness you desire. Stir occasionally. Turn off heat, add lemon juice. Ladle hot syrup into the hot jars. Leave 1/4 inch headspace. Place jars in canner and process for 10 minutes.

This yielded 5 half pints when I tried it.

I will see how the syrup reacts over time to both being refrigerated as well as shelf storage. I am not sure if it will thicken any, but it was super tasty. I doubt there will be much time to watch it on the shelf as I am sure it will be eaten fast.

Brandied Apple Rings, Apple Jelly and Butter Recipe

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity, with tutoring starting again and house straightening to be finished, I managed to squeeze in a some quick canning. I decided to try out a recipe for brandied apple rings this year. I cut down the recipe considerably as I wanted to see if I would like this at all before making big batches of it. I selected out the prettiest red apples for this recipe as the skins are left on the apples.

After a good scrub, it was time to slice them into rings on the v-slicer and a quick dip in lemon water to keep the slices nice and white. I also use an apple corer to get perfect circles cut out of the centers. I do have to go back sometimes to clean up sides of seed casings that are left behind, but I try to maintain a rounded shape as best as I can. I thought these turned out very pretty. Then it was time to cook them in a sugar solution. I did this following the recipe, and I am not sure if the apples have become too soft or if they are just not a good fit for the recipe but they started to disintegrate after only 7 minutes in the syrup. They were supposed to cook for 15 minutes.

I took quick action and just started loading up the jars before I had nothing left. I then added the brandy to the sugar syrup, added it to the jars, and capped them off. Then it was into the water bath for processing. I think they turned out very pretty with the red color that naturally permeates through the jars. The recipe said you could add food coloring if desired, but I kept them plain to see how things naturally would develop. I hope they taste good, but for now, they look pretty and will be an interesting surprise for a later day.

As promised, I am going to post the recipes I use for apple jelly and butter. Please make sure you follow proper canning techniques when making these recipes, including processing finished products as well as maintaining the proper sanitation needed for safe canning.

Apple Jelly
4 cups apple juice (this takes about 3 pounds of apples and 3 cups of water)
2 tablespoons strained lemon juice
3 cups sugar

To Prepare the Juice Select about one fourth under ripe and three fourths fully ripe tart apples. Sort, wash and remove stem and blossom ends. Do not pare of core. (I do remove all the seeds though.) Cut apples into small pieces. Add water, cover and bring to a boil on high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until apples are soft. Extract the juice using a moistened jelly bag. This takes around 2 hours. If you want a clear jelly, do not squeeze the bag. For clearer jelly, refrigerate the juice overnight and skim off any solids that are in the juice. Keep solids from the jelly bag to make apple butter.

To Make Jelly Measure apple juice into a kettle. Adjust proportions of sugar to juice if necessary. Add lemon juice and sugar and stir well. Boil over high heat to 220 degrees F,if you are at higher elevations to 8 degrees above the boiling point of water, or until jelly mixture sheets from a spoon. Remove from heat, skim off foam quickly. Pour into prepared and sterilized jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Seal and process for 10 minutes in water bath.

Yields 3 to 4 eight ounce jelly jars.

Recipe amended to take into account higher elevations. Also look at the comments section below for my comment to learn an easier way to test for the set of jelly rather than the sheeting from the spoon.

Apple Butter

2 quarts of cooked apple pulp
4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
dash of allspice

Use apple pulp left over from preparing the apple jelly. Run the pulp from the jelly bag through a food mill or fine sieve to remove seeds, skin, and seed casings from the pulp. Measure the pulp and adjust sugar and spices proportionally to the pulp measurement. Add sugar and spices. Cook on medium low until the flavors are well blended, about 15 minutes. To prevent sticking, stir frequently as he mixture thickens. If the butter gets too thick for your liking, you can add a small amount of apple juice or water to thin. Pour hot apple butter into hot, sterilized jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process pints and half pints for 15 minutes in water bath.

Yields about 5 pints.

Fresh Bread and Pie

I tried Reinheart's soft sandwich bread out of Artisan Bread Everyday yesterday, and I have to say that I was very pleased with the results. The dough is rather easy to make and took me only 20 minutes the night before to mix up. The recipe makes two loaves, and since there are only the two of us, I debated cutting the recipe in half. I decided on making the full recipe and trying to freeze half of it after the overnight fermentation. I will let you know the results of this experiment when I need to make sandwich bread again in the coming weeks. The dough the next day was velvety and soft feeling. It was just a great feeling dough.

I segmented into the two loaves, rounded one and placed it into the oiled zipper bag and froze it just like I have done with the lean bread from this book. The other loaf was shaped, placed into the greased tin and left to rise for two and a half hours. I slipped the risen loaf into the oven for 40 minutes, the shortest cook time, and found this beautiful golden brown bread. The crust on the top was just right. I have to say that the gold touch pans from Williams-Sonoma really do a wonderful job with bread and the crispness of the crust around the full loaf.

When I cut it open, I found this beautiful crumb with just the right amount of bubbles in the dough for lightness. It is a more dense bread than store bought to be sure, but it is also velvety and moist. The texture is soft yet firm enough that it does not collapse into a compressed mess. What did I put on this too too decedent bread? Why peanut butter and homemade jelly of course! I know, it seems so unclassy for this royal sandwich bread, but it was what I was craving. Now to just find myself a perfect bread box, so my bread can last a bit longer. Currently it is wrapped up in waxed paper in an attempt to keep it decent for the next few days. I had it for toast this morning, and while the interior is still wonderful, the crust is starting to lose a bit of its crunch.

After bread baking, I went on a quest to find more lemons as I had run out. I needed them to start the next project, apple pie filling. I processed more apples into the dehydrator and then I was off to the races getting the pie filling made. I have to recommend the v slicer or a mandolin if you are thinking of doing apple pie filling or dehydrating mass quantities of apple slices. It really does make fast work out of the slicing, and it also ensures that your slices are all the same perfect size.

Once the slices were treated against browning, they had to be blanched for a little bit to facilitate the canning process by bringing them to a hot temperature. Next the goopy filling that goes between the apple slices was made. I followed the recipe from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, and I think this is another winner out of that book. The Clear Jel really makes it all work well. After the goop was made, in went the apple slices and a quick boil was reached. Then packing them into the jars and into the canner for processing.

I found that this recipe ran a bit short on its estimate of yield. I only got five full pints and a scant sixth when the recipe says it makes seven pints. Perhaps my half circle slices were too large to measure out the 12 cups as exactly as they did in the recipe. No matter as I am sure this will not be my only batch of apple pie filling this year. I am sure once we go apple and grape picking this fall that more will be made.

I can my pie filling into pints rather than quarts because a quart perfectly fills our mini pie pan. This pie was made last night out of the scant pint that was left over. It had just too much air space in the jar to reasonably store it, so I used it right away! Hey, no one is complaining here!

I had some requests for the apple jelly and apple butter recipes that I used for yesterday's blog posting. I will post them tomorrow in the blog. Check back to get those recipes then. Today is a really busy day as it is the first day back for me at 826 Valencia for after school tutoring. I still have some canning I am going to try to get done before I leave for that as well as getting my dance class clothing ready and the house straightened up a bit. I promise wholeheartedly to post those recipes tomorrow.

Apple Jelly and Butter

Yesterday was an intense day in the canning process. I did both batches of apple jelly and apple butter as well as drying more apples in the dehydrator. Apple jelly and apple butter do go hand in hand as the jelly uses only the juice from the fruit, so the butter uses up the spend flesh from the juicing process. The only waste is the skins that are stripped away when making the apple butter. I did a batch and a half of the apple jelly as it has always been one of our favorite things to spread on fresh rolls with dinner.

I rough chopped up the apples after washing them. It was kind of nice not having to peel and core everything. I did, however, remove all the seeds from the apples before putting them in the pot with the water to cook out their juices. An episode of G.I. Joe once had them destroy a blob like monster by running it into an apple orchard. They reasoned that the poison in apple seeds would kill this monster, and it did. Hence, my paranoia of apple seeds was born, and my fear of cooking the apples with seeds present continues to this day. The apples cooked at a low simmer for 30 minutes, filling the house with a wonderful perfume smell. It is one of the aspects of the Gravenstein apple that I really do love. From there, the pulp and juice was carefully and slowly poured into the jelly bag to drain.

Now last year I did my jelly using a pair of nylons as my jelly bag, and this is a wonderful and cheap way to do jelly. I just recommend using a new and nicely cleaned pair when you do this. My kitchen, however does not have any place good to hang a nylon from, so I splurged and bought a Fox Run jelly bag set. I found this to be a nice set so long as one does not over fill the bag. It is held onto the ring with elastic, so if the weight is too much it will pull itself off the ring. My batch and a half of apple jelly was right on the edge. I did not squeeze the bag this year either as I had more time to let it all drain. This jelly bag did a tremendous job of not letting any solids through, so I did not have to restrain the juice before putting it into the pan for the cook.

Here is the small amount of overrun from the jelly. I took this picture from the top, so you could see how clear it turned out. I also had minimal foam to skim which resulted in five beautiful jars of perfectly clear blush colored apple jelly. The especially nice thing about having a little left over is that you can taste the early results of your work. We had this with some bread and soup for dinner. It was very light and fragrant, and the set on it was firm yet spreadable. I could turn the cup over without the jelly moving or sliding. A good set indeed!

From there, I squeezed the pulp back out of the bag and into my newly acquired vintage Foley food mill. This was the inaugural run for this, so I was super excited to try it out. The food mill worked like a charm, and with some prodding and poking, I got all the pulp out that I possibly could and left behind only the small scraps of skins from the pulp. It felt very satisfying to be able to use the spent pulp this year to make the apple butter. If you are not making apple jelly and want to just make apple butter, I posted my sister's wonderful crock pot apple butter recipe last year around this time. I used her spice ratio to season this year's pulp as well.

Cooking the pulp and spices to get the flavors through the mixture made me wish fall was here already. All the sweet smells of apple, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice created the biggest turkey and stuffing craving I think I have felt in a long time. From there it was a quick trip into the jars, sealing them, and then into the water bath. In the end, I had five half pints of jelly to four half pints of butter. I guess that is a good guideline for future jelly to butter recipes, that the butter will be one jar or so less than the jelly side of things.

Today I have already baked some bread using the Reinheart's Artisan Bread Everyday cookbook. It has made me want to dig right in, but I still have to wait for the loaf to cool. Once it has, I have a feeling that I will be digging in for a sandwich! This loaf looks like one of the best ones I have made yet, and I promise to post pictures and baking notes on it tomorrow. This was my first attempt at his Soft Sandwich Bread, so I hope it all turned out. If it tastes as good as it smells, I think I am in for a real treat.

Hopefully I can try out his recipe for pull apart rolls. Those are our favorite way to convey apple butter to your taste buds. Today I am off to take a quick walk to pick up more lemons. I do not have enough for today's canning plans: apple pie filling! I cannot wait to get this done and make up a pie for tonight's dinner, even if it means more peeling and coring. After that, more apples are going into the dehydrator, and then perhaps some work on my velvet wreath. I hope to get it done before the end of August, and it looks like I am rapidly running out of time.