Okay, so I advise you to steer clear of the traditional ‘fruit’ roll-up from Betty Crocker.
Berry Berry Cool Ingredients: Pears From Concentrate, Corn Syrup, Dried Corn Syrup, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Acetylated Mono And Diglycerides, Pectin, Malic Acid, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Natural And Artificial Flavor, Color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1).
That is NOT a berry berry cool ingredient list, Betty.
Now I know these may be a thing of the past and you don’t necessarily eat them anymore, but many, many foods like Betty Crocker’s Fruit Roll-Ups are being sold all over and tons of kids are consuming them. The corn syrup, the trans fats, the ‘flavors’, the dies – they’re so prominent in candy and children’s foods these days. Not only can we ourselves avoid eating these kinds of foods, but we can also avoid giving them to our children and future children. There are infinitely better options! Including these dehydrated smoothies homemade superfood real fruit roll-ups. I guess you can call these ‘the adult fruit roll-up’ or ‘the improved kid fruit roll-up’.
They are made primarily from fruit, but you can also sneak in some super foods, seeds, powders and what have you to make them more nutritious!
Need a little inspiration?
I gotchu.
- Start with the fruit.. bananas, pineapple, apples, melon, all kinds of berries, apricots, peaches, mango, pears, kiwi, durian, lychee, etc. You want your mixture to be primarily fruit.
If you’d like..
- Add some greens or a sneaky veggie.. kale, spinach, mixed greens, chard, cucumber
- Add some super foods.. spirulina, chlorella, maca, cacao, açaí, goji berries, lucuma, mesquite powder, camu camu
- Add some ingredients to change up the flavor.. shredded coconut, lemon/lime juice, cinnamon, vanilla, other flavor extracts and spices
- Add some seeds.. chia, ground flax and hemp are great
- Add a hint of sweetness.. raw honey, maple syrup, agave, etc.
Then place it all in a blender and blend away.
You literally just make a smoothie! Don’t be scared to mess up. Just taste test as you add ingredients and start by adding a very small amount because you can always add more! Some great combinations I’ve liked are:
Piña Colada – pineapple, spirulina or chlorella, banana and coconut
Banana Power – banana, chia seeds, ground flax seeds, cinnamon, maca, mesquite
Superberry – Mixed berries, açaí, goji berries, greens, banana, pear
Tango – Mango, lemon juice, chia, strawberry, lucuma
Grab Bag (shown in the pictures) – Banana, apple, blueberry, cranberry, strawberry, vanilla bean powder, ashwagandha powder, superfood smoothie mix from Bright Earth Foods
Pour the mixture onto a Teflex sheet or wax paper and spread using a spatula so it’s about 1/8 inch thick. On a Teflex sheet, I like to pour a circle in the middle and then just move it in the air side to side, front to back so that the smoothie spreads over the sheet – it makes it a lot more even than trying to use a spatula to do it. Dehydrate at 115 for 8-12 hours (overnight works great) until dry. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can bake them on your oven’s lowest setting on a parchment or Silpat-lined pan for 4-5 hours until dry as well. You don’t want this to bake so if your oven’s lowest setting is over 170, you may want to prop it open slightly or let it heat up to it’s lowest temperature and then turn it off and repeat every hour. Do so until it is not gooey at all when you touch it.
If you are going to use a dehydrator and you have a lot of trays you can fill, it’s nice to make up different kinds or multiple batches so you can make a mess once and have more on hand for snacking. I’ll make around a 40 oz. smoothe and fill about 5 trays. When dried, I then cut each big leather into thirds or fourths.
Do you have any other questions or ideas?! Send them my way using the comments section below 🙂 Also, let me know what you try and how you like it!
Until next time 😉
Fantastic fruit rollups! Ashwagandha powder is new to me. I might just replace it with maca.
Thank you! Yes, or any other kind of powders/superfoods you like! Ashwagandha is an adaptogen so it is useful if you’re feeling stressed and would like to alleviate those symptoms and feel more relaxed overall 🙂
Your fruit roll ups came out to be such a beautiful color! I love the photographs, it’s making me really crave some fruity snacks 🙂
Thank you!! They are quite a nice little treat, that’s for sure!
My first batch turned out great! Thank you for the recipes!! If done in the dehydrator, how should the fruit roll-ups be stored and how long will they keep for?
Yay, Nina! So glad to hear! I just store them in a seal tight container or in a Ziploc bag if you don’t have containers. They’re freshest the sooner you consume them, but they last quite a while because they’re like other dried fruits. I’d eat them within a month so you can enjoy them when they taste in their prime 🙂
I pulled some frozen fruit out of the freezer yesterday and blended up 4 different flavors… Put them in my dehydrator overnight (around 10 hours). I scarfed my Apple Cinnamon flavor, and had to throw away my Pineapple Tangelo flavor, a couple of the tangelos must not have been good to start with because they turned out bitter (bitter citrus is the worst). I still have a Banana-Apple-Spinach, and a Grape-Cherry. Texture was great, they maybe could’ve gone for an hour or so less, or maybe I should’ve kept the mix a little thicker instead of spreading it thinner. Great little tutorial, though!
K, those sound delicious!! Thanks for sharing!