Instructions

1. Pick mangoes that give under your thumb at the stem end and smell of mango through the skin. A firm one still has the starch of an unripe fruit and dries to a leather that tastes of cardboard.
2. Cut the flesh away over a bowl and scrape the stone as well. It holds a surprising amount, and this recipe needs four mangoes to fill the trays.
3. Blend the mango, applesauce, honey and lime juice together. The applesauce is not filler — its pectin is what makes the sheet flexible, because mango on its own dries into something closer to a crisp.
4. Taste it now and add honey only if the fruit was sharp. It should be noticeably too limey for a drink, since sourness fades as the sheet concentrates and sweetness does not.
5. Pour it onto parchment paper-lined trays and tilt each tray until the puree finds its own level, aiming for the thickness of a coin. Thicker than that and the middle stays sticky long after the edges are finished.
6. Dry at 135 °F for 15 hours. This is a wet puree and running well past the stated time is common, so treat the clock as a starting point rather than an answer.
7. It is finished when a fingertip laid on the centre comes away clean and the sheet lifts from the parchment paper in one steady pull. Any patch that stretches and stays behind needs more time.
8. Let it cool flat before cutting, then roll the strips in paper. Warm leather stretches out of shape under a knife, and rolls put away warm weld into a single block.
9. Sealed in a jar they keep for a month, and three in the fridge. The lime keeps them from going musty, but honey draws water out of humid air, so a loose lid is what turns a good batch sticky.