Homemade fruit "roll ups"

I love to make things homemade, infact I prefer to figure out how to make things than go out to eat or buy them from the store!

I came across a homemade fruit "roll ups" recipe that seemed to go to be true. It was way to simple. I always imagined that making them, without machinery, would be pretty tough. I mean, they look so "perfect"!

Anyways, I was browsing the recipe portion of the Disney Family website (click here) when I came across the recipe. I was thrilled. I wanted to try to make fruit snacks for the girls because even the "100 percent fruit" had junk in them that I didn't like.

The recipe (here) called for dry fruit and water. Simple right? It totally was super simple!

Here's the recipe and directions. We actually used a tropical fruit medley!

By Anne Coleman

Ingredients

8 ounces dried apricots or other dried fruit

1 1/2 cups water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
2. Line a 12x15 inch baking sheet with aluminum foil; coat foil with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Combine apricots or other dried fruit with water in a heavy saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes or until fruit is very soft.
4. Drain excess liquid and pour fruit into a blender. Puree until very smooth.
5. Pour fruit onto prepared foil and spread evenly, making sure there are no holes.
6. Place sheet into oven for 25 minutes. Without opening oven, turn heat off and leave oven door shut for 8 hours.
7. Remove baking sheet from oven and gently peel fruit from foil. Set on waxed paper, right-side down, and press down.
8. Cut into 12 even strips, lengthwise. Roll each strip with the paper side out and store in plastic bags until ready to eat.

Oh, I also used parchment paper. The picture on the website looks like a type of cellophane was used to back the rolls, I had parchment paper and it worked just fine. :)

Anyways, it was a lot of fun! It was tricky to spread on the tinfoil and getting it as even as possible without any holes was a bit of a process, at least for me, but it was a lot of fun. They aren't as pretty as their processed counterparts but they sure do taste better and looks aren't everything! My children were very pleased with them!

My 4 year old, Becka, was nice enough to let me get pictures of her during her tasting process. She LOVED them, gave them a thumbs up and then ran off to let her younger sister try it. It was a huge success with Taegen too, who refused all photo ops though.

I will be making these again, maybe one day I'll be able to dry my own fruit!

Spread onto the foil:

Cutting into strips (I can not cut a strait line, apparently):

The finished rolls:

Storage :)

Becka's wonderful candid moments lol :) She loved them!