There is a moment at every festival, usually in the early hours of the morning, when your body tells you that the last thing you ate was a $14 hot chip at 4pm the previous day. The queue for food is forty deep. Your tent is a fifteen minute walk away. You have no cash, no signal, and no plan.

All is good, because our Super Fruit D-Floor Rolla’s are the answer!

Super Fruit D-Floor Rolla’s is pureed fruit dried into a flexible sheet, then rolled up like the roll ups you had in your school lunchbox, except this version is made of actual fruit rather than sugar and food colouring. It weighs almost nothing, packs completely flat, does not melt, does not squash, does not need a chilly bin, and does not care that it has been in the bottom of your bum bag for two days. It also gives you real fruit sugar when you need it most, which is more than can be said for a warm energy drink.

Here is how to make a batch before you hit the road.

What Makes It ‘Super’

Any fruit works, but the version below leans on ingredients that earn their place in your pack. Berries bring antioxidants and a proper hit of flavour. Banana does the heavy lifting as a binder, so your Rolla’s stay bendy instead of shattering. Chia seeds add a bit of fibre and healthy fat, which slows the sugar down so you get a steady lift rather than a spike and a crash.

The optional extras are where you can go wild. A teaspoon of beetroot powder deepens the colour to something genuinely alarming in the best way. Spirulina turns a mango batch a swampy green that photographs brilliantly and tastes like nothing much at all.

The Formula

Once you understand the ratio you can stop following recipes entirely.

4 cups of fruit : 1 tablespoon of lemon juice : sweetener to taste

That is it. The banana counts towards your four cups. Lemon juice keeps the colour bright and stops everything going brown and sad. Sweetener is optional and depends entirely on how ripe your fruit is.

Super Fruit D-Floor Rolla’s

Makes roughly 10 to 12 rolla’s

Ingredients:

• 1 large ripe banana
• 3 cups mixed berries (frozen is fine, and usually cheaper)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 to 2 tbsp honey or maple syrup, only if your fruit needs it
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 tsp beetroot or acai powder (optional)

Method:

1. Thaw and drain. If you are using frozen berries, let them thaw and tip away any excess liquid. Wet puree takes forever to dry.
2. Blend. Everything into the blender until completely smooth. You want no lumps and no seeds you can feel, because both turn into hard little bits in the finished sheet. Push it through a sieve if you are using raspberries or blackberries and you care about texture.
3. Taste it. This is the step everyone skips. The flavour concentrates as it dries, but sweetness does not increase, so if it tastes flat now it will taste flat later. Adjust before it goes anywhere near the oven.
4. Spread. Line a large baking tray with baking paper, not foil, and not a silicone mat unless you want to spend twenty minutes peeling. Pour the puree on and spread it to an even 3 to 5mm. Even is the whole game here. Thin patches burn while thick patches stay tacky, so tilt the tray and let gravity help you.
5. Dry it low and slow. Oven on its lowest setting, ideally 60°C fan bake. If your oven does not go below 100°C, prop the door open with a wooden spoon. Give it 6 to 10 hours depending on thickness and how wet your fruit was. Overnight works perfectly.
6. Check for done. It should feel like soft leather, tacky to touch but not sticky, with no wet patches in the middle. Press the centre with a finger. If nothing comes away on your skin, you are finished.
7. Cut and roll. Leave the Rolla sheet on its baking paper, cut the whole thing into strips with scissors or a pizza wheel, then roll each strip up with the paper still attached. The paper stops the roll sticking to itself.

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