Yesterday at my dietetic internship we learned how to dry fruit! It was fun and very tasty 🙂
We dried the fruit using a dehydrator. You can also dry fruit on a tray in the oven on a very low temperature (about 140 degrees), but it takes much longer and is a big waste of energy since you have to leave the oven door propped open (air circulation is important for drying)!
I totally want to buy a dehydrator now. Here’s the one we used at work! It’s basically a container with 4 slotted breathable trays inside it that stack on top of each other. When turned on, hot air is blown around inside to dry the food on the trays!
Drying fruit was way easier than I expected. For some reason I always imagined dehydrators being super scary and hard to use, but it was the complete opposite! Easiest thing ever.
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How to Dry Fruit Using a Dehydrator
To dry fruit, you start with… fresh FRUIT! Shocker 😉
We used apples and bananas — mangoes are on the docket for later on, but they weren’t ripe enough today, sniff.
The bananas were super easy — just peel, slice into very thin pieces, and toss into an ascorbic acid/”fruit fresh” bath (to stop the browning) — this step is totally optional but will make for a prettier product!
Instructions for using the Fruit Fresh are on the package!
For the apples, we cored them and then tossed the slices into an ascorbic acid bath as well. 
After the apples had been in the bath for a few minutes, we started taking them out one by one, peeling them, and cutting them into thin slices. The thinner the slices, the faster they will dehydrate!
After each piece was sliced, we threw it back into the ascorbic acid bath.
Once everything was sliced and ready to go, we headed over to the dehydrator!
As you can see on the lid, there’s a handy temperature guide — for fruit, they recommended setting the dehydrator to 135 degrees, so that’s what we did!
Our first layer was apple! Make sure to blot the slices to get out any extra water before placing them on the dehydrator tray.
After 2 layers of apple slices, we made 2 layers of banana slices on the top trays:
And that’s it! We added a few sprinkles of cinnamon just for fun, closed the lid and walked away. About 6 hours later…
VICTORY!
Just like store bought but better since there was no added sugar 🙂
Easiest thing ever, right?! Must buy a dehydrator… apparently they are only like $30? Have you guys ever dried/dehydrated anything? How’d it go? What’s your favorite thing to dehydrate?
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And in other news — the winners of my Attune Foods giveaway from yesterday! Thanks so much to everyone who entered 🙂 The 3 winners are (selected using Random.org):
- Comment #107, Carolyn
- Comment #238, Abby
- Comment #127, Jen Robinson
YAY! Congrats, ladies! Please send me your full names and mailing addresses (anne @ fannetasticfood . com) and I’ll have Attune Foods contact you regarding selecting your cereals!
I’m off to school to work on a group project all day — have a great day and happy friday, friends!
