Probiotic Fruit Leathers

We all love our fruit, but not always the excessive sugar load that comes with eating fruit. There are a couple of reasons we want to reduce the sugars in our diet...and our fruit.

Firstly, we have an unprecedented access to fruit all year round in much larger quantities that we ever used to, this modern fruit is selected for extra sweetness and has become a contributor to many metabolic and health issues affecting our society.

Following that, if you, or someone you love is dealing with gut issues and the plethora of symptoms that appear as a consequence (eg. digestive issues, brain fog, rashes, mood disturbances, weight issues, poor sleep, lack of energy, behavioural or developmental problems), you will want to reduce the amount of sugars available to fuel this dysbiosis. 

What I want you to know is this! You can have your cake and eat it too!

Just make the cake amazing!!!

Here is my recipe for Fermented probiotic fruit leathers - the sugars have been fermented out and replaced by beneficial probiotic strains. The fermentation process makes the food more digestible, enhances nutrient content and has an awesome complexity of flavour. 

You can use this recipe to preserve an excess of seasonal fruit or simply to fill up your kids (big and little) lunchboxes. Enjoy! 

Fermented Probiotic Fruit Leathers

Ingredients

• 1kg fresh fruit

• Apples and strawberries
• Mangoes and vanilla
• Pears and a few fresh dates

Method

1. Peel and purée the fruit.
2. Pour into to an airtight glass jar and mix through a 1/4 cup Kultured Wellness coconut water kefir. Ferment for 48 hours, and taste to ensure sugar content is reduced. Leave for up to 3 days if necessary
3.  At this point you can store in the fridge for a few days.
4. Using a dehydrator with mats or baking paper, line dehydrator trays and pour fermented fruit purée onto tray. Spread out with the back of a spoon ensuring you have an even spread of purée around 2mm thick. 
5. Dehydrate overnight at 37°C. This will retain your probiotic goodness and produce a fruit leathers that you can roll up and pop in your child’s lunchbox, or snack on after school. 
6. If you don't have a dehydrator, dry in the oven on the lowest possible temp. The probiotics will not be retained in this technique, but you will still have a fun, nutritious, low carb snack for the family. 
7.  Store your fruit leathers in an airtight container in the fridge or cupboard for 2 weeks.