Hi all --

Just had to share my excitement... Got an excalibur dehydrator and made my first batch of strawberry fruit leather yesterday... Used 2 to 1 ratio of thick unsweetened homemade applesauce to pureed strawberries, a pinch of citric acid, and then tried different variations for sweeteners -- honey, corn syrup, and straight sugar.

They were delicious! YAY! My preference will actually be for a mix of honey and corn syrup -- I thought honey was the best textured one, but a little too sweet... Corn syrup texture was still quite good but let more of the tanginess come through. I'm particularly pleased to be using up some home-canned applesauce that was a little too tart for straight eating, but that I pressure canned back in 05! Its nice to put it to good use!

Its a good thing that these are tasty, since we are having an insane bumper crop of strawberries that are unfortunately a little too tart for fresh eating out of hand -- picking about 8 pounds a DAY from our 125 plants... I'm actually starting to dream about strawberries... So now I'm doing a test to see if I can freeze the puree and then defrost and make fruit leathers later, as the sheer volume of strawberries is a little overwhelming right now.

Next batch I try is going to be strawberry peach, with some peach sauce I canned a while ago... Then maybe I'll start pelting passing cars with strawberries...

Emily