Friday, December 5, 2008

How to Make Dried Fruit for a Jello Cake Recipe

By KC Kudra

Whether you are trying to enrich your diet with more healthy fruit or whether you have children in mind and are thinking of their nutritional requirements, one great way to do so is to make dried fruit. This also ensures you are getting plenty of natural sugars and vitamins in your diet. Dried fruit is very versatile and can be eaten alone as a snack or used to decorate your favorite jello recipe in a unique way. The only problem is that dried fruit can be quite expensive but this is easily overcome when you discover how easy it is to make your own.

If you want to make a decadent, delicious dessert, you might like to top your jello recipe with some dried fruit. This makes it both better looking and healthier. Adding dried fruit to the sides and top of the jello cake is simple once you have the fruit. Making your own dried fruit is simple and cheap. It is also a lot of fun so if you have kids you can get them to help you. Before you head out for your bananas and apples, keep reading for some tips.

The easiest way to make dried fruit is with a food dehydrator. This device lets you control the drying speed, temperature and everything else involved with the drying of fruit. It also means you can dry the fruit without having to use the stove which is great if you are busy using the stove for other things. Fruits such as pears and apples will dry at 135F and come out succulent and delicious.

If you want to dry your fruit the old fashioned way instead, this is also quite easy. First, choose your fruits. Bananas and apples are quite easy so these are good fruits to try if you are new to fruit drying. The first thing to do is to cut the fruit. The drying process works a lot faster if you cut your fruit into thin slices, although fruit of any shape will dry eventually.

Next, you need to prepare the fruit. A lot of fruits go black or brown they exposed to the air for a while, so you will need to soak them in a solution. You can use ascorbic acid, lemon juice, and honey and water or fruit juice containing plenty of citric acid. This will keep your fruit's color and needs to be done also with fruit you are going to dry in a food dehydrator.

There are a few different ways to dry your prepared fruit. You might want to use a plastic needle to thread the fruit on to a clean cotton thread and hang it in a sunny spot. Depending on the juice content of the fruit, this can take a few days. You should put a cloth on the floor to catch any drips. You can also dry the fruit in a conventional oven if it is not sunny where you are or if you are worried about insects getting to it before you can! If you want to do this, to prepare your fruit for adding to an easy jello recipe for example, you need to place some wax paper on a cookie sheet. Lay the fruit slices on the wax paper without allowing them to touch one another. Heat the oven to 175F and let the fruit slices cook. This will take a few hours but it is important to keep the oven at 175F unless you want burnt fruit on your jello!

Your fruit is done when you decide it is ready, so get experimenting because making dried fruit is a lot of fun and it is gorgeous when added to a jello recipe or other mouthwatering dessert. - 16463

About the Author: