blackberry and apple fruit leathers

Fruit leathers are a chewy, intensely flavoured snack, perfect to make if you have a range cooker on all the time, like an Aga. Apples form the fruit pulp base for all the leathers, as they are cheap, widely available, and one of the healthiest fruits on the planet. For different fruit flavours, try strawberry, raspberry, plum, and blackberry, and make them when the fruit is in season.

fills 3 trays (30 x 45cm)

• 1.5kg dessert apples, cut into rough chunks, not peeled and pips left in (they help with the set)
• 500g blackberries
• 1 tablespoon cornflour

Put the fruit – both apples and blackberries – into a large, non-reactive saucepan. Stew the fruit down gently to a thick pulp, which takes up to an hour.

Put the fruit pulp into a fine sieve and push through with the back of a wooden spoon into a bowl, leaving pips etc behind. Preheat the oven to its lowest setting.

Line three baking trays with greaseproof paper. Pour the sieved purée in as thin a layer as possible onto the greaseproof paper and spread evenly with a spatula. Put this in the oven and cook until fruit is completely dry. This can take 10-14 hours.

Once the leathers are cool they can be eaten straight away. Cut them into strips, roll into scrolls and serve as in the photograph. Or to store them, dust both sides with cornflour and layer them with baking parchment in between, 86 to prevent from sticking. Store in an airtight tin.

This recipe originally appeared in Good Good Food.