Thick Soft Fruit Leather

First off I have to say that I'm greatly impressed with my little point and shoot camera as it has a manual focus on it which I just discovered. Doesn't work the greatest but at least my photo is clear. This recipe here is from Lottie and Doof which you can find here. I have to say I was really disappointed in my jellys. They weren't very jelly like, in fact. They turn out kind of like really condensed apple sauce. While they were hard enough to cut, they were still really squishy. I dont' know why but I expected them to be.. well... Jelly like! Lol. Anyways, there are a number of things that could have gone wrong including the types of apples I used, time I cooked the batch with sugar, etc etc... But I made two batches, both different and the one I did my way turned out better in my opinion. If you'd like the original recipe(which is in the picture above), click the link above. For my method.. read on.

I started with about 2 pounds of apples. I had two different kinds, Macintosh and Sunrise. Like Lottie and Doof I washed quarted and cored all the apples, threw them in pot with enough water to cover the bottom of the pan, so about a 1/2 cup. I also added a squirt of lemon juice because the Mac's like to turn brown really quickly. Then I cooked them till they were completely soft. At this point I took my immersion blender and blended the whole mixture, peels and all, till it was all blended and only a few small chunks of peel remained. I should mention here that I made sure to get all the core out when I cored them otherwise you'll have gross bits in your jellys, although.. I wouldn't name my apple surprise "jellys" either.

Now that the apples are all blended(you can use a blender, I just love my immersion blender to bits) add the juice of one lemon, turn it to medium low heat and let it simmer. Its going to need to simmer for at least an hour, probably an hour and half . Near the begining you don't need to stir as much as there is a lot of liquid, but later on you'll need to stir very frequently so the bottom doesn't stick to the pan and burn. It should get so thick that you can scrape it all into a pile in the bottom of the pan and it will stick up like a mountain without spreading out. You can always test a little bit on a plate in the freezer to see if its gelled enough. If it has, you need to put it in a small container. Lottie and Doof suggest a 8x8 pan for 3 lbs of apples with 1 1/5 cups of sugar added, so use your judgement. You can always use more apples and use an 8x8 pan... Or what I did was put the mixture in one corner of my 8x8 pan and only spread it out half way. The mixture was so thick that you could form it however you wanted. Either way you should put parchment paper inside the pan/container and oil it with canola oil, then put the apple into the pan and spread it out flat. Leave over night. The next day flip it out of the pan and leave with the bottom side up. Leave out till dry, which might mean overnight again. Then cut into small chunks.

Now I have to warn you, my version is not like Jelly either, but its a lot firmer, almost like Fruit leather but thicker, softer and not chewy. Also, depending on how sweet your apples are, it will probably be a little tart. I used very sweet apples, and it's sweet but a little tart from the lemon juice. And these are a much darker red than the ones above as the apple peel is still in them which also keeps all the nutrients from the peel in the "candy". Also it's only got the natural sugars from the apples, no added processed sugar to make you feel bad about eating them. Enjoy if you're feeling risky enough to try them :)