Callow Digital Food Dryer and Dehydrator – Review, Recipe & Give Away

129 Comments

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I have to be honest, I had never heard of a food dehydrator before I was asked to review one late last year (yes this is an ever so slightly over due review *ahem*!!). I accepted the review to satisfy my curiosity after I had googled what one was and I thought it seemed like a very clever little machine.

The Callow Digital Food Dryer and Dehydrator is a way of preserving fruit and avoiding waste, while also allowing you to make your own dried fruit which is just brilliant! I often buy dried fruit for making flapjacks and cakes, but I always have lots leftover, spilling out into my food cupboard which inevitably means that those escaped pieces end up in my bin! However, being able to make my own dried fruit as and when I need it is just genius and saves on space in my cupboard and money in my purse! Plus, of course, drying your own vegetables, meat of fruit is also a very good way of preserving food and retaining their vitamins and nutrients.

So far I have only tried making dried banana, strawberries and apples mainly because these are fruits we buy the most, but I can see me trying mango , cherries and blueberries soon next time I see them on promotion!

The machine comes with a booklet which tells you which fruits, vegetables and even meats you can dehydrate, and for how long and on which temperrature. Setting the machine is VERY easy – heck I mastered it straight away, so it must be ok!! It comes with 5 trays, so you can dry a lot of produce all at once (as long as they all require the same temperature). Due to my fruit needing 10 hours in total, it meant that the machine was left on while I was in bed, but, as with a slow cooker, the machine stops after the allocated time and it is safe and in the morning when I came down to the kitchen to investigate my newly dried fruit, it was fine and my kitchen had not burnt down!!!

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As much as the dried fruit is lovely to eat as a snack, still sweet and with some mositure still, I decided to incorporate them into a recipe so here is how I made some Fruit & Nut Oaty Bars

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Fruit & Nut Oaty Bars
 
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Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 200g oats
  • 50g unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 1 tbsp peanut butter
  • 1 tbsp nutella
  • 100g dehydrated (dried) strawberries
  • 100g dehydrated (dried) bananas
  • 100g ground hazelnuts
  • 2 meduim apples, peeled and grated
  • 50g sultanas
Instructions
  1. pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC (fan)
  2. grease and line a deep rectangular tin (I used a 10 x 8 inch)
  3. place the peanut butter, honey, chocolate spread and butter in a non stick pan and melt together to make a syrup
  4. stir in the oats, fruit and nuts and mix well
  5. pour into the tin and press down
  6. bake for 40 minutes (ish) until golden brown
  7. leave to cool in the tin before turning out and cutting into squares

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I cannot wait to keep using my new Callow Digital Food Dryer and Dehydrator, I think it will come in very handy, and who knows maybe come next Christmas the dried fruit used in my pudding might be a batch which I dehydrated myself!

GIVE AWAY

I have a brand new Callow Digital Food Dryer and Dehydrator to give away, which is worth £59.99 and all you need to do to win it, is to fill in the form below. The prize draw ends on 1st February, 2015 at 12am. Good luck 🙂

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was sent this product for the purpose of a review, which I have done honestly.

 

 

129 Comments

  16. Rosalind Blight

    I love dried pineapple. Was only today my daughter asked if we could make our own banana chips so fingers crossed

    Reply

  21. Ellie Bromilow

    figs! nom nom. I even have a fig tree but as it is a baby no figs this year…. fingers crossed for a bounty of at least one this year!

    Reply

  47. Sarah Fawcett

    Cranberries and blueberries are my favourite dried foods and I have them every morning with seeds and nuts in my yogurt

    Reply

  88. Chris

    My favourite dried food is mushrooms. The flavour becomes so intense. They taste better than the fresh mushrooms when used in casserole cooking.

    Reply

  108. barbara madden

    dried strawberrys and raspberrys we have an allotment so get a lot left over and this would be perfect not seen one before

    Reply

  109. Juliet Kitson

    Dried raspberries and dried meat. Not together of course but equally as delicious. What a fab prize and you could have a great time trying new recipes. I’ve just discovered goldenberries too. Yummy!

    Reply

  115. Suzanne M

    Dried raspberries – they are fab for having with yoghurt and granola for breakfast or making cakes.

    Reply

  129. Anna

    A few years ago I’ve also never heard of a food dehydrator. But since I got my own food dehydrator, it’s impossible to live without it. 😉
    My dehydrator works a little bit different as yours, because it has a horizontal drying system, which looks like this: vitality4life.co.uk/biochef-arizona-6-tray-food-dehydrator/
    Such a drying system guarantees a consistent drying at all levels. This consistent drying at all levels was a problem with my old vertical dehydrator. Do you have also this problem?

    Reply

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