Finally, some information that is more ‘hit’ than ‘miss’! These are a delicious treat that anyone who likes tart fruity snacks will enjoy.
Also, it’s Vegan and Gluten Free!
Equipment
- Food Dehydrator (you can use the oven, just know it’s going to be in there for quite a long time.)
- Teflon sheets (parchment can be used, but the paper will wrinkle making the crisps wrinkly also). I tried silicone sheets, but they had a bit of a texture and are thicker then the Teflon, making it a bit harder to peel off the sheets without breaking them.
- Blender
My personal setup looks a lot like this:
Ingredients
- Fresh Bananas
- Frozen Pineapple
- Fresh Lemons
- (optional) Other Frozen Fruits of your choice
- (optional) Fresh Mint
- (optional) Seeds such as flax (adds nuttiness), or my personal favorite – Chia (adds crispy texture I enjoy but almost no flavor)
Quantity depends on how big your dehydrator is. Just make sure you have roughly equal parts Fresh Bananas and Frozen Fruits.
Instructions
- Zest and juice the lemons.
- Blend roughly equal parts bananas and pineapple, use a table spoon or two of juice from the lemons to improve blender flow and add lemon flavor. If it’s not blending because it’s too stiff due to the frozen fruit then add liquid such as water or pineapple juice to get the ingredients moving. Too much liquid can cause them to flatten out too much and ‘leak’ water/juice and can end up a mess so be careful.
- Use a spoon to dollop cookie size portions approx 1/4″ – 1/2″ high onto your Teflon sheets. Leave a bit of space in between as they’ll flatten and expand outward a little bit (If they expand in diameter greatly, try adding less liquid next time if possible. For the most part they should be flattening downward but not much outward).
- Top with lemon zest and optional mint/seeds.
- Dehydrate at about 140 degrees for 8hrs or until they’re completely dried and very easy to peel off the Teflon – and when in doubt just let them go longer. As far as I know, they can’t be ‘over baked’. I tend to do them a bit higher in degrees for fruit than usually recommended for dehydration because it’s faster and according to some websites when I tried to research it, higher temp on fruit/veg can making them crispier, which is what it desired.
They tend to be slightly flexible when warm but will pop off the teflon sheet easy when fully dehydrated, and will crisp up as they cool.
The end product should end up airy and crispy and have a (tart and lightly sweet) fruity lemon flavor.
After fully cooled, store them in an airtight container and they should last about a week.
….and FYI, crush them up into bits and they make an amazing topping for yogurt and probably a lot of other stuff too!
Optional Variants
Other fruits work well in place of (or mixed with) the pineapple component in this recipe. Good fruits to use are strawberry, peach, mango, and blueberry (although watch out with blueberries, they can be very strong and almost bitter tasting if you use a lot, so go easy on them). You can also add mint or ginger into the mixture and make some interesting flavors.
Often I’ll make two smoothies, one with just bananas/pineapple and one with bananas and another fruit mixture for a ‘fruity center’ or just to have two varieties.
You can also leave out the lemon components if you don’t like lemon flavor or sour things. This recipe is pretty flexible – just remember the 50/50 rule of fresh fruits to frozen fruits ratio and things should work out well.
Problems to look out for:
- Flattened too much: Too much liquid was added, not enough frozen fruit.
- Came out chewy: Too much fresh fruit. More frozen = more crispy. Also, I think some fruits may tend toward chewiness if you use too high a ratio of them (I’m looking at you peaches), pineapple always seems to go well for me.
- Doesn’t Peel off The Teflon Easy: Stop touching it, it’s not done yet!
- Tastes like soap: Too much lemon zest.
Enjoy!
