Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 285 kcal | 81 kcal |
| Protein | 4.3 g | 1.2 g |
| Fat | 1.1 g | 0.3 g |
| saturated | 0.1 g | 0 g |
| Carbohydrate | 61.4 g | 17.4 g |
| sugars | 58.8 g | 16.7 g |
| Fibre | 10.5 g | 3 g |
| Sodium | 22 mg | 6 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 8 large carrots
- 3 3/4 cups spinach, washed and dried
- 8 large oranges
- 2.1 kg pureed strawberries
- 1 cup honey
Instructions
- Juice the carrot, orange and spinach together rather than one at a time. Spinach gives up almost nothing on its own and needs the wetter produce running through the machine to carry it out.
- Use the juice straight away. Vitamin C is the whole point of this recipe, and it degrades in juice sitting on a bench faster than anything else in the bowl.
- Blend the juices with the strawberry puree and honey until the colour is even. Spinach juice is dark green and will streak the sheet if it is only stirred through.
- Judge the thickness before it goes on the tray: it should coat the back of a spoon rather than run off it. Juice alone is too thin to form a sheet, and the strawberry puree is what gives it body.
- Pour it onto a lined tray and spread it to an even depth with an offset spatula, thicker at the edges. The rim of a sheet always finishes first, and a little extra there buys it time.
- Dry at 52 °C for 7 hours. The colour shifts from red-orange to a darker brick as it goes, and that shift usually shows before the texture changes.
- It is ready when the centre is leathery under a finger and no longer prints. A sheet that comes away wet in the middle goes back on — the edges being done is not the same as the sheet being done.
- Peel it warm, cut it on baking paper, and roll each strip. Rolled without paper these stick to themselves within the day, because of the honey.
- Keep the rolls airtight for a month, or freeze them for six. The vegetable juice makes these spoil sooner than a pure fruit leather would, so do not leave them in a lunchbox all week.
