Oven Dried Strawberries - Not So Dried

I decided to try and make oven dried strawberries the other day, my son had the store-bought kind and loved them, but it's hard to find ones not covered in sugar and other crap. So I went online and found a recipe to make them at home in the oven. Looked simple enough so I gave it a whirl.

Preheated my oven to 210 degrees, found my largest cookie sheet, covered it in parchment paper so the berries wouldn't stick and proceeded to wash and quarter the larger berries and halve the smaller berries placing them on the cookie sheet. I spaced them apart to provide air flow as the recipe recommended. This all took approximately 15 minutes.

Put them in the oven for two hours. Checked on them at the two hour mark, they clearly weren't done. Put them back in for another hour. Oven timer goes off, check on my berries and still disappointed, most of them were still mushy/moist. I pulled them out and checked different recipes and decided to let them sit and cool down. Knowing the cats had zero interest in berries, I left them sit for about an hour. 

Unfortunately most were still mushy/moist, not anything I could put in a bag in the pantry with out the fear of mold taking over the inside of the bag. I put them in a container in the fridge instead. They ended up being "super strawberry-ie" as my son put it. I thought they were super tart. I ate a couple fresh ones to "sample the goods" prior to cooking and they tasted great. They will be ok for adding to oatmeal or yogurt.

Will I try it again? Actually, I'm going to try a mango next with different temp and cooking time...will let you know the results. In the meantime, if any of you have been successful with oven dried strawberries, I'd love to hear from you.

Dirty Dishes: 1 cookie tray (strawberry juice leaked through parchment paper, but the paper did keep them from sticking), 1 knife, 1 cutting mat

Time Spent: 30 min total, 15 on prep, 15 on cleanup/put away

Recipe Ease: Super easy