Blueberry Fruit Leather.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?IJANT 19 July 2012 Blueberry Fruit Leather
Three litres, about three pounds, of blueberries were made into fruit leather.The selected berries were hand blended into a slurry. The hand blender allows one to beat into a fine slurry, whereas a typical canister blender will not allow this unless water is added, which complicates the dehydration process. After experimenting with the various sold sheets sold by the dehydrator companies, I determined that they were relatively useless and not required since a teflon sheet is far more convenient. It is necessary to get the product onto open screen mesh for efficient dehydration. This is impossible with a slurry until sufficiently dry so the liquid does not run into the mesh. About ten hour at 125F dries the underside so it can be flipped over to complete the dehydration on the open mesh. Also the tefon pans enclose the thick slurry and make for a nice shaped leather.After the fruit sheet is on the open mesh dehydration is rapid and must be checked regularly to determine when the process is complete and the desired result is obtained.
Note. The end product was perfect after a further three hours of dehydration on the open sheets. The end product is a bit soft (desirable) and was vacuum packed and will be kept in the refrigerator or frozen for longer storage. To store at room temperature the product must be as hard a shoe leather.The commercial fruit leather and dried fruit if soft as is the usual case, has to be packed with bacterial inhibitors, since it cannot be soft and kept on the open shelves of supermarkets without some inhibiting chemicals. I never buy the stuff.