Strawberry Series: Smooshed Fruit

There is a snack from Strech Island Fruit Co. that I really like and they used to call it Smooshed Fruit.  The name has since changed but the product is still the same.  It is basically a whole food fruit roll-up.  They use minimal processing and additives and make dehydrated tasty fruit snacks!  Problem is, if you buy them individually they are about fifty cents a pop.  The concept isn't too hard but I don't have a food dehydrator and so didn't consider trying to make these... until I ran across this blog post at Berlin's Whimsy while searching for things to do with peaches.  The recipe sounded so simple and tasty AND she dehydrated the fruit in the oven!  I printed it off and put it away for peach season... then remembered it and tried to adapt it for strawberries!

My first batch was a flop.  When they say spread it 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick, they really mean as close to 1/8 of an inch as you can get.  They say this for good reason, if its not thin enough the fruit will dry out on top quickly, but then the moisture can't escape from the bottom and it will never dry properly, ending in a sticky mess that you can't do anything with... phooey.

Also, as wrong as you may feel about using plastic wrap in the oven, it worked much better than the wax paper I tried that first time (because nobody is supposed to put plastic wrap in the oven, right? Surely they meant wax paper, right?  Wrong...).

The second batch worked much better and I will show/tell you what I did for that instead!

 Strawberry Smooshed Fruit


Roughly 3 cups washed, capped and halved strawberries (you want two cups pureed)


Puree in blender until smooth, add extra berries if needed until have about 2 cups.


Pour into sauce pan, add 3/4 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons lemon juice (you can adjust to taste, but remember the flavor will intensify as it cooks and dries)

Cook on low/medium-low heat for about an hour.  The mixture should be bubbling and reduce in volume by about half.  It will darken some as it cooks, this is ok.  Be sure to stir regularly or it will burn on the bottom.


Spray a sheet pan lightly with cooking oil (I used spray olive oil), then line with heavy duty plastic wrap (I used Saran Wrap Premium with good results, Do not use wax paper!), and also lightly spray the plastic wrap with cooking oil. 

 Once the strawberry mix is finished cooking spread into prepared pan.  This is the tricky part because you want the pan covered but you don't want it too think because it won't dry and you don't want it to thin because it may scorch.  About 1/8 of an inch seemed to work well.

Put in the oven on the lowest setting possible.  Most often recommended was 120 degrees, but the lowest my oven goes is 170 and that seemed to work fine.  Mine took about three and a half hours to dry.  When dry you want it to peel away from the plastic easily and you don't want to see any uncooked portions on the bottom when you peel it away from the plastic.  It may still be tacky to the touch on top.  If your oven can go lower it will probably take longer to dry (some took as long as 8-12 hours in the recipes I found).

Cool completely on a wire rack, I actually pulled the plastic off the pan and put it directly on the rack after this picture to allow it to cool faster.

Once cool, invert the smooshed fruit onto a piece of wax paper, peel off the plastic and roll tightly with the wax paper.  This should last for several weeks on the counter, several months in the fridge and about a year in the freezer.  Enjoy!

The second batch worked great but I wish I had it in smaller rolls, it was pretty hard to cut through the paper, fruit and all.  So on the third batch I cut the fruit into portion size strips with kitchen scissors, cut the wax paper about an inch or two bigger, and wrapped individual portions, then I twisted the ends like a peppermint wrapper.  I think it will work much better!

I have seen several recipes for different fruits and hope to try some others as the season progresses.

So it sounds all involved and difficult but it was really a simple snack to make, once I figured out what I was doing!  Hope you can find a use for smooshed fruit!