Healthier Snack Option: Homemade Cinnamon Apple Chips

Almost half of the dried fruits sold are raisins, dates, prunes, figs, apricots, peaches, apples, and pears. Many dried fruits, such as cranberries, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, and mango are infused with a sweetener like sucrose syrup before drying. Some like papaya, kiwifruit, and pineapple, are most often candied fruit. Many story-bought dried fruits are high in calories and not as healthy as you think. Drying your own is the best way to ensure you are consuming a product with the nutritional value you think you are getting. Recipe below.

Girl eating apples (AI)Photo byDa Vinci AI App / Colorado Martini

Dried fruit is a process of removing the water content by natural methods, sun drying, dehydrators, or the oven. The history of drying fruit dates back thousands of years. There is evidence of this process of preserving food on Mesopotamian clay tablets from around 1700 BC of dried fruit.

We often give dried fruit to our children. They are an easy snack to carry and do not need to be refrigerated. Raisins are popular dried fruits amongst caretakers. But they have a very high glycemic index. Which is the measure of how quickly a food raises blood sugar levels. As you can see by the list below, dried apples have about half the glycemic index as raisins. Making dried apples a better option.

Glycemic index of different dried fruits (approximations)

• Dates: 62
• Dried apples: 29
• Dried apricots: 30
• Dried peaches: 35
• Dried plums: 29
• Figs: 61
• Raisins: 54

Honeycrisp apples sliced for chipsPhoto byColorado Martini

Homemade Dried Apples

A long cooking time is to remove the liquid from the apple. This is accomplished by cooking the apple slices at low heat for a long time. Jerky is made in the same way. I tend to open the oven door often, just to let the moisture out. I feel this helps dry out the slices.

Adding additional sugar is just making that glycemic index rise. If I am going to add some sugar, I use stevia because it is a healthier option. Stevia is considered calorie-free. It has less than 5 grams of carbohydrate per serving. Stevia also has a glycemic index of zero. If you use a sweet apple like a Honeycrisp, you will find the chips to be sweet enough.

Thickness of an apple slicePhoto byColorado Martini

• 4 apples (the sweeter the better)
• 2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 packages stevia (optional)
• Parchment paper
• 2 large baking sheets

1. Preheat oven to 225°F.
2. Thinly slice the apples with skins on. Core each slice. The slices do not have to be perfect. I even use pieces cut off from the bottom and top of the apple.
3. Lay each slice in a single layer on top of parchment paper.
4. Sprinkle with cinnamon and stevia (optional sweetener).
5. Place in oven and cook for 1 hour.
6. After 1 hour, if you had to stack the baking sheets on different racks, switch them at this time. Now cook both baking sheets of apples for an additional 1 to 1 ½ hours.
7. Remove 1 chip from the oven. Let it stand for a few minutes before testing. If it has not reached the desired crispness, continue to cook until the slices are at the desired crispness. Oven-cooked apple chips are not as hard as potato chips. A hydrator might achieve a crisper chip.
8. Once you reach the desired crispness, turn off the oven and leave the apple slices in the oven while the oven cools. At least an hour.

Apple slices in the ovenPhoto byColorado Martini

Do you have any suggestions for ingredients? How do you make this recipe? Kindly let us know in the comments.

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Reference

• Dried fruit - Wikipedia
• Eden Foods
• Stevia Nutrition