For much of year, the only decently priced fruit in Canada is apples.
As much as I love apples, I don’t usually get through the whole bag. But apples are easy to preserve through dehydration and much cheaper than store-bought dried fruit.
Ingredients:
- Apples
- An acid (lemon/lime juice, white or apple cider vinegar)
- Enough water to cover the apple slices
Equipment:
- Baking sheets
- Parchment paper
- Oven
- Any cutting tool (a sharp knife, a potato peeler or a mandolin)
Process:
Slice the apples as close to 1cm as possible.
If you soak the slices in an acid (vinegar, lemon juice) before baking, you’ll kill a lot of bacteria and yeast on the slices and also prevent the oxidisation that turns the slice brown.
Add lemon juice to a bowl. Add the slices. Fill with water to cover all the slices. Wait 30 minutes.
You can sweeten them up by baking with sugar but I find apples plenty sweet enough. A dusting of cinnamon is nice though.
Put the slices in one layer on baking paper on a baking sheet, and cook at 200F for as long as it takes to dehydrate (usually a few hours). I don’t find they need to be flipped because they’re so thin that the moisture passes through the top.
The apples will likely still be a bit chewy, which means they still have some residual moisture. Best to keep them in the fridge if you plan on eating them much later.
