I made myself a dehydrator:
Ok, not quite. I worked out how to dry stuff using my radiator! I’ve been using this method to melt my cacao butter for a while now, then started drying some orange peel for making the orange oil which then led me to try and dehydrate a cookie…
So I was experimenting with a recipe for a cake base and I thought “mmm, this would make a good choc chip cookie, so I added some currants and, there it is:
Ingredients:
- 60g almonds, soaked
- 6 dates, soaked
- 2 prunes, soaked
- 50g cacao nibs
- 1 tsp lucuma
- 1 tsp mesquite
- 1 tsp cacao powder
- 10g currants
I put everything except the currants into the food processor and processed until the texture was ‘cake like’ (took quite a while, kept having to stop and stir it up a bit). I then added the currants and processed briefly. I ate most of it as it was and dried one cookie for an hour or two, but I think if you have a dehydrator it might make good cookies. You might want to add more cacao powder, 1tsp doesn’t make them very chocolaty.
I have been recently dehydrating soaked almonds and seeds over my apartment radiator and it works great. The heat is always on so I might as well use the energy. Do you know how hot the air around your radiator gets? I’m wondering how close you can get to the radiator without exceeding 115 degrees and potentially killing food enzymes. Let me know if you have used a thermometer. I plan on getting one soon. ( bko6508@yahoo.com )
I’m afraid I really don’t know. My guess is that the air temperature would be fine, but if your “dehydrator” touches the radiator and is made or metal or anither material which would transfer the heat from the radiator, it might get too hot, but if you used wood it wouldn’t.
Please let us know what you find out with your thermometer.
Rob