Home-Made Fruit Leather Trays

 Here is a way to get really economical fruit leather trays.

I found packets of two flexible chopping mats for $1 at the Dollar Store. If you can find the silicone ones, they are much better because nothing sticks to them.

These mats are usually rectangular in shape. Works just as-is if you have a square dehydrating unit. However, if you have a round unit like the American Harvester, you will need to do a little cutting.

I traced one of my fruit leather trays onto the plastic, then cut it out.

 After cutting the outside, I inserted a knife to make a slit for cutting the inside circle. 

Since these mats are rather stiff (used for cutting boards) I set mine up in the drip trough on my cutting board in order to cut that slot.

Here is the new fruit leather tray on my rack.  Notice that a bit of the edge does not have the tray.  To my mind, that’s a non-issue.  Even with a little bit of the tray missing, this is significantly easier than waxed or parchment paper.

I now have eight new fruit leather trays for $4, less than the cost of one commercially manufactured tray.