Martha Monday: Fruit Roll-Ups

Brette, from Martha and Me, challenged us to try one of the recipes in the September issue of Living.  It was a pretty easy recipe but I, of course, hit a few bumps along the way.  Martha directed us to puree four cups of berries or stone fruit with 1/2 cup sugar and a tablespoon of lemon.  We were then to cook it in a pot over medium heat until thick, about 30 minutes.  Pour mixture through a sieve onto a baking sheet lined with a nonstick liner or parchment.  Tilt pan until evenly distributed.  Bake for about 3 hours at 170 degrees.  Sounds easy right?

Well, I chose nectarines as my fruit.  All I did was take the pits out.  I pureed them, skin and all, with the sugar and lemon juice.  Then I started to cook it in a pot on the stove top.  It was fine until it started to bubble and splatter and spit molten hot nectarine glop all over my stove.  And then all over me!  I put up with this for only 15 minutes.  After all, wasn't it going to bake in the oven?  Did it really need more time on the stove?  I ignored the idea of a sieve, as my blender had done a great job of pureeing, and just poured it onto the parchment lined pan.  I tilted it and slid it into the oven.  Three and a half hours later . . . it was still gooey in the middle.  Hmmmm.  Perhaps those 15 minutes were necessary.  Finally, after a total of SIX HOURS in the oven at 170 degrees, my fruit leather was the proper consistency.  Once cooled, I rolled it up right in the parchment it was baked on.  A serrated knife easily cut it into eight servings.

And . . . my test subjects sat down to taste it . . . YUM!  They both agreed that this stuff was sublime.  Of course, never having had commercially produced fruit roll-ups, they have nothing to compare it to.  I've already received a request to try blueberry roll-ups so I may actually be making these again sometime soon.