👌🏻Fermented Blackberry & Fire Cider Vinegar Fruit Leather👌🏻

A fruit leather is a very old method of preserving fruit. I imagine it being made for thousands of years. It’s really hard to get to the bottom of the history but Antiquarian cookbooks refer to fruit leathers as Persian or Middle Eastern. Honestly I find references all over that mention methods to preserve fruit for winter and other times throughout the year… this is no new thing.

Brands like fruit wonders and BEAR are providing us with these in shops so I thought I’d try and re-create a sour sweet version with my fascination of fermentation. Firstly I used a fire cider vinegar to pickle and ferment some blackberries picked in August and added a little sugar to liven it up to ferment once more. The fire cider vinegar is made by adding horseradish, chilli and ginger (many others used please search online if you’re interested) into a live apple cider vinegar (@willysacv) from earlier in the year. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted so destined to be on everything for the foreseeable.

As the hawthorn fruit (Haws) have ripened nicely I use them here for their pectin. The Haws which is best stewed in water first and passed through a sieve (individual seed inside needs removing) to get a pulp that can be set via dehydration, low oven or in the direct sunlight (probably not in the UK in September then…). I added in the fermented fire cider vinegar blackberries into this process. The result the sour tang of a super sweet citric acid intensified “sour” fruit winder. Without the sugar and a huge labour of love. Gonna make a big batch with another fermented fire cider vinegar fruit for sure!!!