If you live in Kamloops like I do chances are come the end July or early August you don’t ever want to see another apricot as long as you live. There are even people in this town who think the trees should be banned. I happen to enjoy their abundance for one very key reason….fruit leather. My kids inhale fruit leather in the fall like it is candy, which it kind of is. Apricots make my job with fruit leather easy.
If you are using apricots for fruit leather it is very important to choose the tastiest fruit. Apricots that are even starting to rot have a flavor that comes through when it is dried and your kids won’t go near it. Another thing we do on alternating years is dehydrate whole apricots or rather half apricots. My son (who is a very picky eater) loves these in his lunch or as an after school snack.
Dehydrating Apricots
- First, prepare your fresh apricots by washing them, cut them in half, and remove the pits.
- Arrange the apricots on your dehydrator trays, making sure they don’t overlap. If you are using an Excalibur dehydrator, you may wish to leave out alternating trays if you find that your apricot halves are too cramped in-between the trays. I find the Nesco dehydrator better suited for dehydrating apricots due to the spacing between their trays.
- Turn on your food dehydrator and set the temperature between 125°F and 135°F
(or per your food dehydrator’s instructions).
- Apricots are pliable when dried.
- Drying time: between 8-16 hours.
And just for my sister I’ll post a link to an Apricot Spread recipe. She loves the stuff, my family tends towards berry spreads but yours might love this one as much as my sisters family does.