Baking muffins w/ Blueberries - FRESH or FROZEN? does it make a difference?
Are fresh or frozen berries better to use when baking?
I'd think frozen would hold up better (to prevent them from falling to the bottom).
I've also heard of coating fresh berries with flour to prevent falling - but think I tried it years ago with little success.
The muffin recipe I'm trying out calls for fresh berries, but I'm wondering if it really matters.
What's been your experience and recommendation?
TIA.
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I'm lucky to source great blueberries in the summer that are typically sweet and tarty. I individually freeze them and vac seal them, then use them over the winter. These frozen blueberries blow away anything fresh the rest of the year. It takes a bit of work and planning but I find it to be well worth the effort.
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roxlet
Apr 24, 2009 05:04 AM
Just make sure that you DO NOT defrost the berries before adding them to the mixture. IMO, frozen berried (especially the wild ones) are great in any baked goods, but I find that I have to bake whatever it is that I'm making as soon as I add the berries. If they are worked too much into the batter, they tend to melt, give off a lot of moisture and get soggy. For some reason, this does not happen when they are baked frozen -- or at least the effect is less noticible!
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re: roxlet
CrunchyGooey
Jan 18, 2013 06:22 AM
This has happened to me - ruined a lovely berry cake that had raw batter (yuck) all around the berries. Using berries frozen hard and tossed with a bit of flour is the way to go!
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goodhealthgourmet
Apr 23, 2009 02:45 PM
you can use either fresh or frozen regardless of what the recipe says, but i pretty much always use frozen just because it's convenient and i can keep them on-hand out of season. i do toss them with a bit of flour first to keep them all from sinking to the bottom, and it also helps minimize streaking if you don't want your muffins/quick bread to turn out blue/purple.
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