Make your own homemade fruit roll ups (or homemade fruit leathers..what do you call them?) with berries you already have in your freezer! These semi-healthy snacks are perfect to make ahead of time to stow in your purse, gym bag or running pouch for fuel-on-the-go!
You can even trick your kiddos (shash significants others) into thinking these are dessert. I mean, they are pretty sweet depending on how much sugar you use, but it’s real fruit!
Gotta love Pinterest, right? One of those sites that both blows your mind with inspiration AND makes you feel like an underachieving doof. What am I doing with my life if I’m not making my own homemade soap, detergent, pancake mix and home décor?
Sometimes I see something that I really must make and it turns into an obsession. I start dreaming about it and imagining how I will make the recipe my own.
It was this gorgeous plum fruit roll ups pin that caught my eye first. Then all of a sudden I saw homemade fruit leathers and roll ups everywhere on the interwebs.
It’s winter slash early spring.
Everything is frozen here in the tundra of Minnesota (okay, it’s thawing now that I’m putting the finishing touches on this post, but you get the gist) and there’s no way I could use “fresh” fruit for this recipe. So I had to figure out how to whip up my own homemade fruit roll ups with frozen fruit.
The thing about using frozen fruit is that it takes a lot longer than fresh fruit since it tends to have more moisture. Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand it myself. Does freezing things add moisture somehow? (seriously, can someone tell me? am I the only one that doesn’t get this?)
But I read this fact and I found it to be true when making my own delicious raspberry homemade fruit roll ups.
So these did take a good portion of the day to make, but it wasn’t like I was actively making them for hours..you let them dehydrate and check on them once an hour or so.
I also want to note the difference in color for my two long photographs.
One was photographed in the kitchen using the kitchen lights and the other was done using natural light by the window and a white light bounce board.
Let me tell you…I cannot wait to have a place where there is natural light in the kitchen!! The colors just do not look the same. Plus sunlight makes me happy, so I hope we get a house with a bazillion windows when we move back to Nebraska someday. 
#firstworldproblems
(Zoey likes to help. Slash lick the food I’m trying to photograph.)
I would also like to point out that I made these things without the help of a food dehydrator, so it is possible to get by without one.
Raspberry Homemade Fruit Roll Ups Recipe:
(or homemade fruit leathers if you want to be fancy)
You are my hero Amanda! I’ve always wondered if you could do it with frozen fruit too. Lo and behold, Amanda saves the day! And my goodness, these are some abso-freakin-lutely gorgeous fruit leathers. That deep color is stunning. Truth on Pinterest too … I always come away thinking, I could make my own noodles, face wash, dusting polish, baby wipes, and English muffins ! Aaaaand I could also have no life, but ya know, it’s priorities 🙂
haha so glad I was able to figure it out for you! This makes me so excited that I can make fruit leathers in the winter though (even though it’s almost spring) because sometimes winter food seems less fresh, ya know?
YES. Pinterest priorities lol!
Frozen fruit appears to have more moisture because when it’s frozen the water molecules expand and break the cell walls causing major water seepage when it thaws!! #themoreyouknow #nerdalert
My food processor bit the dust, but soon as I get a new one I’m making these!!
Oh my gosh thank you for the nerdy information!! I guess I could have googled it haha but your explanation was probably better anyways! 🙂
Boo for dead food processor! I should get a new one too…way too small for all the ish I put it through!
Hi! I’m stopping by from the Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop. This looks really good! I don’t like the Fruit Roll-up brand, but there is one brand from Mexico I love that looks similar to this — with real fruit in it. I never thought of making my own though! Thanks for sharing!
You’ll have to try these! Glad someone is linking my posts to the Thursday blog hop! 🙂
YUM. I loved fruit leather as a kid, and this looks like fun to make!!
It really was fun and there are tons of flavors you can make…I’m excited to experiment again!
Wish I had known this recipe when my kids were young…looks easy! Thanks for sharing with the Thursday Blog Hop!
You can still use it! 😉 and I’m so grateful for whomever is adding my posts to this blog hop!
I’m adding your posts every week. It’s my gift to you for being on my sidebar xo
Ohhh thank you! I was so confused for awhile! 🙂
This looks amazing! I’m trying to find some healthier alternatives for our kids that don’t contain all the artificial dye since my husband is allergic and his allergy appeared later in life so we are hoping to avoid that for the boys! Thanks so much for sharing and I pinned this recipe 🙂
-Sara
YES! I’m so glad you pointed out that there are no dyes in this recipe! It’s crazy how common they are in foods these days!
So very happy to help and thank you for pinning! 🙂
I think our grandchildren would love this! xo
Yes! Please let me know if you try it! 🙂
Popping over from Inspire Me Monday =) I enjoyed the ‘semi healthy snack’ part, then I realized that is name of your blog. hilarious! And I call them fruit roll ups. This is always on my to do list to make but I never do… Be sure to share your recipes, crafts, upcycles & DIYs at Two Uses Tuesday (Mon 8pm EST to Fri 11pm EST) over at Sarah Celebrates if you don’t already!
haha glad you like the name of my blog! You should definitely try this..wayy easier than I thought it would be!
I would love to make this using honey rather than the sugar….does it still turn out about the same?….
I JUST saw this comment, but wanted to let you know we have tried it with honey and it worked out okay, but I think you might need to dry it out a little longer. Ours was a lot stickier than just using sugar. Thanks for the question!
So happy to find your post. I have a freezer full of fruit and I needed to make some space so I just opened pinterest and typed in frozen fruit and low and behold!
I have pureed and am cooking down and praying it works out 🙂
Also, I love the bright white photos, they look great!
Ah that makes me so happy! The process takes a bit of patience, but I think the outcome of a healthy fruity snack is very worth it! Best of luck and definitely share photos on Instagram tagging @semihealthnut so I can see how it went! 🙂