Hi Kate , I'd love to try this, and your instructions are full enough to be really useful... but me being English I have one or two questions... As you probably realise, we aren't usually as self sufficient as you lot our, and dehydrators are not on our must-have list. In fact, I'd never even heard of them till I read your article. Now, I do dry herbs and things, but use either the microwave or an egg incubator. I can see a dehydrator would do a much better job, and I do have one intended for a room which would probably do the job if I put it plus pears into a tall cupboard - not ideal so I wondered if you had an alternative suggestion. Meanwhile I'll look on ebay etc. but I don't hold out much hope of finding one over here. The next question to which the answer is probably obvious, is that you appear to have dumped cores into the mix complete with pips? IS that right? Lastly, I'm guessing this could be done with any fruit.... any idea how long it keeps, given the opportunity? Upvoted and followed