Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 282 kcal | 80 kcal |
| Protein | 8.2 g | 2.3 g |
| Fat | 2.4 g | 0.7 g |
| saturated | 0.2 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 54.1 g | 15.3 g |
| sugars | 54.1 g | 15.3 g |
| Fibre | 11.8 g | 3.3 g |
| Sodium | 6 mg | 2 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Instructions
- Choose one fruit rather than mixing them on a tray. Apricot, strawberry, kiwi and watermelon all dry at different rates, and the powder is only as good as the wettest piece in it.
- Slice the fruit thin and even, and cut out anything fibrous — strawberry hulls, kiwi cores, the white rind on watermelon. Fibre does not grind; it ends up as threads in an otherwise fine powder.
- Spread the slices without overlapping and dry at 52 °C for 8 hours, longer for anything as wet as watermelon. Drying it further than you would for eating is deliberate here.
- The fruit has to be brittle, not leathery. Snap a cooled piece: if it bends at all, it goes back on, because a pliable slice will gum the blades and turn the batch into a paste instead of a powder.
- Put the brittle fruit in the freezer overnight before grinding. Cold makes it more brittle still and stops the residual sugars softening under the heat of the blade, which is the single reason most home-made fruit powders come out sticky.
- Grind it straight from the freezer in short bursts, letting the blender rest between them. A long run warms the jug and the powder clumps against the sides.
- Sieve the powder and put any coarse bits back through. What is left behind in the sieve is usually skin, and skin is what makes a powder gritty in an icing or a drink.
- Jar it while it is still cold with a desiccant sachet in the lid and keep it in the dark. Fruit powder pulls moisture out of the air faster than almost anything else you will make, and it holds about six months before the colour flattens and it starts to cake.
