My granddaughter always wants to bake or cook when she comes over. We make cookies, bread, candies, and pizzas.

A few weeks ago, I came across a recipe to make fruit leather, same kind of thing you can buy premade, all ready rolled up for a kids snacks. I thought this would be fun for my little sidekick and I to do together.

Only 2 ingredients, fruit and honey. That was it. Fool proof. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Kid friendly.

That was a lie from the pits of hell!

When my granddaughter came to spend the night, I told her what I had for us to do, asking her if she wanted to make the the fruit snack/leather or make banana bread. She chose the bread, and did it by herself with supervision. And it was really good.

And we made some “pumpkin trucks”.

It was a fun little weekend with her,

But now, I had some strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries that needed to be used up quick. I decided I would whip up the fruit leather myself and just test it.

The recipe said to mash up the fruit and add it to a food processor or an emulsion blender and add 1/4 cup of honey. I remember thinking, shouldn’t I boil this down a little? But the recipe said to just mash it up, so I did. I mixed in the honey and did a taste test and it was good! It reminded me of a blackberry pie my grandma used to make, with the lattice crust and that shiny sugary crunch on the top. It was a sweet memory of a long ago kitchen, watching grandma magic.

The directions said to spread it thin on a parchment lined cookie sheet. So that is what I did, I thought.

I set the oven at 175, and it was supposed to be in there for 2 to 6 hours. I had mixed it up on my lunch break, (I work from home) and put it in the oven. I was sitting at my little desk and I started smelling the fruit and it smelled so good.

The recipe said to check every hour and it would become a dull shine and was tacky. And I did that. At the 2 hour mark, it looked like the recipe picture but it was still jiggly. So I went back to my desk.

About 30 minutes later, it was not smelling like yummy fruit pie, it smelled like burnt sugar. I opened the oven and smoke just rolled out and there were a few tiny flames. I pulled it out and I was coughing and hoping the smoke alarm wouldn’t go off.

Have you ever made a fruit pie, and it bubbled over in the oven and covered the bottom of the oven? The smell is unmistakable and my entire house smelled just like that.

So, making homemade fruit leather that you can roll up, is trickier than I thought. I had never tried anything like this before and I certainly did not believe this snack should have been a flambé!

The goal is 60 new things before I turn 60 and I have 27 more to go and I can’t wait!