Adventures in Leather Making

Mangos here went on sale last week- 67 cents a pound! My family can eat a mango a day, sometimes more if I let them so I grabbed an entire bag full of them! My plan was to make Mango Leather and Dried Mango. I made both, and both turned out nicely, although Matt and Emmaline like the leather better and I'm assuming its because I added a sweetener :)

Here's how I did it! Wash and then peel 4 mangos. I use a potato peeler, it works really nicely. Slice up the mangos. For the leather it doesn't matter how it looks, for the dried mango I needed to cut the sides of as nicely as possible and evenly slice everything. I put all the mangos in the blender and puréed them. I'm assuming a food processor would work nicer but I don't have one so I don't know. Add some yummy spices! I added about a 1/3-1/2 cup of honey, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg. (It smells like a really yummy pie the entire time its cooking!) I layered two cookie sheets with plastic wrap. No, it doesn't melt except for a slight bit around the edges. For the fruit leather, I tried to keep the wrap as wrinkle-free as possible. I did not use any wrap for the dried mango, just laid them all nicely on the pan.

I had to use a spatula to even all the puree out. I still didn't get it perfectly even. Its important to get it as even as possible because the thinner spots will dry faster and end up being crispy by the time the thick parts are dried. Also, if the plastic wrap folds down over the mango, that part will never dry. I had that happen on one pan, where the edge of the wrap folded over slightly. I pretty much just had to scrape that part off the leather. Next was the cooking. I put both pans in the oven at the same time. I cooked them for 2 hours at 200 degrees then another 6-8 hours on 170 degrees. You pretty much just have to gauge the leather to see how long to cook it. Toward the end I checked it about every 30 minutes for soft spots. This is the leather when its all done! Its easiest to peel off the plastic when its warm, it also rolls better. But my first batch I put in the fridge before taking care of any of it and it was just fine. For the dried mango, I pretty much waited until it was cool and peeled them off the pan. I peeled the mango, grabbed a cutting board and my pizza slicer... And cut the mango into strips. For the 'authentic' feel of fruit roll ups, roll them. I suppose you could just cut them all into squares or smaller strips and stack them... Maybe I'll try that next time. Finished product! This is two batches of fruit leather- so 8 mangos. Actually, this is less than that because Matt, Emmaline and Lottie enjoyed several pieces of the first batch before I made the second. Both the leather and the dried mango need to go in air tight containers. I was sad to note that the leather is only supposed to last 3 weeks, but knowing my family, it probably wouldn't last longer than that anyway. So this really is just a treat, not for food storage. I believe the dried mango will last a lot longer, especially in the fridge, as long as it is dried completely.