You may have seen skeleton leaves before as a garnish. They are beautiful, but often bleached, so not very organic and definitely not edible!
I like to make my own skeleton leaves from thinly sliced pear. To do this, you need a mandolin and a food dehydrator or an oven that can reach 70 degrees.
Let's get to it
Ingredients:
1 pear
A mandolin or peeler
A food dehydrator or oven
oven paper
Recipe:
1. Cut a pear in half lengthwise.
2. Make wafer-thin slices. This is best done with a mandolin, but you can also use a wide potato peeler.
3. Cover your baking tray with oven paper.
4. Place all the pear slices on your baking tray. Make sure that they do not overlap each other.
5. Place a baking mat over the pear slices. This will prevent them from curling in the dryer/oven.
6. Slide the sheet into your food dryer or oven and set it to 70 degrees for 10 hours.
7. Take the skeleton leaves out, carefully remove the baking mat.
8. Using the bottom of the oven paper, gently push the skeleton leaves off the baking sheet.
And voila, eatable skeleton leaves!
Use them as garnish for your favourite cocktails, dessert or just eat them on their own.