Fruit Leather

Fruit leathers are very solid fruit pastes that have been cooked as usual for a paste and then additionally dried out, either in a low oven or in the sun, for longer keeping. These drier pulps have also been recorded over the centuries, and Delightes for Ladies gives instructions for a medicinally tart dry cherry pulp, cooked with no additional sugar, and made even more sour with lemon juice or verjuice according to taste. Contemporary leathers usually have a little added sugar or honey—perhaps 2 tablespoons to 500 milliliters of fruit pulp. The pulp is cooked until very thick and then spread out in thin layers on trays and dried in a cool oven.