Make #3: Dehydrated Things

I’ve already fallen behind with #52WeeksOfMaking posts, but fortunately have managed to keep up with the makes themselves, so over the next week or so I’m going to try and catch up.

My third make of the year was actually a whole bunch of makes. I was lucky enough to get a dehydrator for Christmas so I started experimenting in earnest to see what dried out well. The first thing to go in the dehydrator was some oyster mushrooms, which are currently in fairly normally sized pieces. I’m thinking of grinding some of them up to make a mushroom powder when I next make a stew of some kind.

We also had a pineapple that was going to pass its best before we had a chance to use it, so that was the next thing to get dehydrated. I experimented with different sized and shaped pieces when I dried it out, not realising how thin some of the slices would get once it was finished. With no added sweetness this was a lot more acidic than store bought dried pineapple, but thoroughly delicious nonetheless. That’s why there’s not much left.

I also bought some plantains to make some plantain chips. These dehydrated really easily and tasted really good, so they’re definitely going to be made again. Also bananas.

The final experiment was to dehydrate mango, which is one of my favourite dried fruits. Sadly this has proven harder to get right. The first batch of mango I sliced too thinly and it ended up more like shards of mango flavoured shrapnel than the dried leathery mango I was hoping for. For the second attempt I cut the pieces much thicker, and didn’t dry it for as long, but I wasn’t totally happy with that either. It was much better, but clearly dried the outside much more than the centre and didn’t match up to the store dried mango I’m aiming to match. Clearly there is more experimenting to do.