[Cynthia] If you have an apricot tree, you know what apricot season means.

Fruit all the time really fast for about one week, and you have to move quick.

So let me tell you a few things that I love to do with my apricots when it is apricot season.

I love to make an apricot jam that I use actually as a barbecue sauce, or we're not gonna go into that.

I also love making a upside down apricot cake.

But we're not gonna go into that.

We're gonna go for straight up easy.

What am I gonna do with these apricots?

And that is making fruit leather.

First, let's wash some apricots and like nice and ripe, almost that overly juicy.

So I'm gonna fill up my blender.

Hey, let's slice and pit.

Look at that beauty.

This is a very loose recipe, something I made up on the fly.

I know how quick this fruit leather's gonna be eaten up by my kids.

Like truly, I have to hide it.

I will do about four to five cups of apricot.

If you really fill this up, it's probably gonna be about five trays of apricot leather.

So if you just wanna do one or two trays, if you're just doing it in your oven or you're doing it with a dehydrator, less is more.

Next step.

This is how easy this recipe is.

I'm gonna grab a lemon.

This is a very loose recipe y'all can do however you wanna do.

I just take half a squeeze of lemon, in a real good, squeeze it in.

I'm gonna pull out that seed.

I like something called the cake spice.

It's kind of like an all season spice.

It has some nutmeg, it has some anis.

You don't have to find the cake spice.

It will taste just great if you wanna do cinnamon.

So if you're just going straight cinnamon, I do about three to four teaspoons of that.

Otherwise, I'm gonna do two teaspoons of cake spice, two teaspoons of cinnamon, one teaspoon of vanilla, one fourth to a half a cup of sugar.

It's a lot.

I wanna throw this out here right now.

Listen, not all cinnamons are created equal.

This is amazing.

The China cinnamon tung hing cinnamon is beyond any cinnamon you've ever tasted.

Honestly.

Taste like cinnamon bears.

And we're gonna blend it up and call it good.

Okay, so now we have our puree.

It's all nice.

Oh, smells so good.

And I'm gonna just give it a taste.

Oh, that's a little tart, but that's okay.

I like a little tart.

I'm gonna make Ashley, Ashley, come here.

Here we go.

We're gonna go like this.

- That was good.

- Yum.

- That was good.

- Here we go.

I'm gonna take this and I'm just gonna lightly, lightly is the key.

I'm gonna lightly pour it on.

You don't want it to go too thick, otherwise it takes a lot longer for it to dry.

I don't like to use a spatula.

I just like to use gravity.

I'm gonna move it all over.

Give it a tap or two.

Okay, done.

Four to five hours later, we're gonna have fruit leather.

So my favorite way to dehydrate is honestly just using the straight up sun.

Now, some people may not have that option, or you might have a lot of flies or a lot of pests.

I don't cover it.

A lot of people have screens, a really fine mesh that they'll put over to protect it from any insects.

Shockingly, I just don't have insects that go after it.

I have children and they are kind of worse than insects, and they always pick at it before it's ready.

But insects for me have not been a problem.

It's gonna be a hundred today, so I'm gonna leave this guy to bake in the sun.

You know what, I'm gonna take a seat and I'm gonna bake along with it.

All right?

My modern gardener friends.

Until next time, see ya on the flip side.