The Pizza Cutter Tip For Perfectly Portioned Homemade Fruit Leather

Homemade fruit leather is a fun and tasty snack that will have you feeling all kinds of nostalgic. Portioned out on parchment paper, you'll feel like a kid again as you unroll the sweet (and sometimes tart) treat. It's a great way to use up any extra fruit that's gotten a little too ripe before it ends up in the compost bin. Making your own means you can skip the extra sugar and still count the snack as a serving of fruit. But it can come with an extra challenge. Namely, how do you cut it evenly and consistently for equal portions?

It's actually pretty easy if you use a pizza cutter. The rolling blade of a pizza cutter offers a lot more control than a knife does. And it will be easier to cut straight lines with the fruit leather laying flat than it ever would be with scissors, which require some handling in order to gain leverage. For comparison, just think of how crooked gift wrap often comes out when it doesn't have a grid pattern on the back to guide the scissors. You won't have to worry about any of that with a pizza cutter.

Once the fruit leather has been fully dried — which can be done in an oven or a food dehydrator — it is ready to cut. Just remove it from the dehydrator or baking tray and get started. To use a pizza cutter, simply place the fruit leather lying flat and cut it into strips. These strips can be as wide or as thin as you like and you can even cut the fruit leather into a grid to make smaller servings.

The great thing about a pizza cutter is that you can do a test run to make sure that each of the lines will be straight and the pieces will be evenly cut. To do so, gently run the cutter's blade across the fruit leather. Instead of pressing down hard enough to actually cut through it, use just enough pressure to make visible indentations instead. That way, if your strips don't turn out even you can start over.

Another benefit of using a pizza cutter is that the fruit leather won't gum it up the way that it can with scissors, which can cause the blades to get stuck together. And since you won't have to handle the fruit leather as much, you'll keep your fingers clean and the fruit leather free from too many fingerprints. The pizza cutter will also give you much more precise cuts than a knife at a quicker speed.

Those evenly portioned fruit leathers will be easy to store, although obviously, you're probably going to eat at least one while they're just sitting there looking delicious.  If you used parchment paper in the drying process then you can leave it attached to the fruit leather and roll the strips up with it for storage — hence the alternative commercial name Fruit Roll-Ups. However, you will need to use scissors to slice through the parchment paper after portioning the fruit leather as the pizza cutter won't quite cut through it.

If you dried the fruit leather without the help of parchment paper, you can also lay the strips on plastic wrap or wax paper and wind them up that way. Or just roll them up without any kind of liner. While they may stick together a little bit this way, you should still be able to unroll them when the time comes as long as they are stored properly (away from light and heat sources) and don't melt. The final product can be vacuum sealed and kept in a cool cupboard or pantry. Alternatively, place them in an air-tight container and keep them in the refrigerator or freezer and you'll have the perfect homemade fruit roll-ups to enjoy anytime you're craving your favorite childhood treats.