Cookie Butter-Stuffed Fruit Leather
Pastry Chef Jennifer Yee of Resurgens Hospitality | Atlanta
Yield: 60 bite-size pouches
“We’re always getting fun and unusual produce at Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta. This past summer, we kept receiving mountains of blueberries from our local growers. Around the same time, our forager brought in a huge bunch of fresh sumac. With a freezer already full of fruit sorbets and ice creams, and pickles and compotes in the fridge, we thought we’d try something else and utilize our product a little differently. My pastry lead suggested fruit leather, and I thought stuffing it with something soft and sandy could make an interesting combination. The leather tends to be a little sticky to the touch, so we dusted each pouch with dried blueberry dust to keep them handleable. Serving them on fresh sumac pods allowed them to pick up some extra tartness from the velvety residue. If you don’t want to use cookie butter, a chunky, salty nut butter or seed butter would also make a great filling!”
Adapted by StarChefs | October 2018
INGREDIENTS
Fruit Leather:
500 grams strained fresh fruit purée
100 gram organic sugar
10 gram apple pectin
2 gram citric acid
Cookie Butter:
750 grams baked shortbread or butter cookie or any cookie really
75 grams coconut oil
To Assemble and Serve:
Dehydrated fruit powder
METHOD
For the Fruit Leather:
To a saucepan, add fruit purée and bring to a gentle simmer. In a small bowl, combine sugar and pectin and then whisk into fruit purée. Bring to a boil, whisking until sugar dissolves and the mixture thickens. Add citric acid and boil 30 seconds. Transfer to a shallow container and press plastic wrap to the surface. Chill until cool to the touch. On a silicone mat or and acetate sheet that fits a dehydrator tray, spread the mixture in a thin layer. The layer should be thick enough to be just opaque but not fully transparent. Dehydrate at 150°F for 12 hours. Be careful not to over dry the sheets, or they’ll lose their malleability. The leather should be completely flexible with a slight tackiness. Cut Fruit Leather into 2-inch squares. Roll squares into tubes, pressing the edges together to seal. Then press and seal one of the ends, so you have a single, open-ended pouch. Stand these up against the edge of a sheet pan to prevent the top opening from closing.
For the Cookie Butter:
In a hot oven, flash cookies. Transfer hot cookies directly to a Vitamix blender and blend to a fine crumb. It should look like a thick paste. Blend in coconut oil. Mixture should be liquified. Transfer mixture to a shallow pan and cool until the consistency is just pipe-able. Quickly transfer to a piping bag for immediate use. If not using immediately, store in an airtight container at room temperature. You may need to warm it up slightly to get it back to desired consistency.
To Assemble and Serve:
Fill each Fruit Leather pouch about two-thirds full with soft Cookie Butter. Pinch the top edge to seal the pouch. For a clean and neat presentation, you can trim each flange with a pair of scissors (pinking shears would also be cool!). Sift fruit powder over both sides of the pouches. Place in shallow airtight container layered with lightly greased parchment. These pouches can be kept at room temperature for 3 days.
