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Ah, a lovely batch of golden blueberry muffins.
Except, sometimes they're not golden. Sometimes, they're more like greenish-blue blueberry muffins instead.
Fresh blueberries are a pleasure to bake with. But unless you have access to a blueberry patch, fresh berries can be quite expensive; and their season is short. Enter frozen blueberries, the backbone of many a winter blueberry pie.
But pie is one thing. Muffins, scones, cake, and coffeecake are quite another, frozen berries bleeding juice into batter to turn these golden-hued beauties a sickly shade of purple-green.
This doesn't have to happen, you know. There's a simple solution.
Rinse your frozen blueberries before you use them.
Rinse berries in cold water several times – until the water is noticeably lighter when you drain them. It'll start out dark blue, but will gradually shade its way up to a watery red/blue.
When that happens, dry the berries well with several layers of paper towels, top and bottom.
Let's see what happens when we use them in muffins. Specifically, Famous Department Store Blueberry Muffins.
Gently and quickly stir the frozen berries into the batter. You'll see a few inevitable streaks of blue, but the entire batter shouldn't turn blue. If that starts to happen – stop stirring, you're done!
The muffins made with rinsed frozen berries are on the left; the un-rinsed frozen berries are on the right. See how much more the juice bled into the batter when we didn't rinse the berries beforehand?
And here are the baked muffins. The rinsed frozen berries tinted the muffins just a bit, but not nearly as much as they would have had I not rinsed them.
Man, now I REALLY want a blueberry muffin, don't you? This berry-packed recipe is for Famous Department Store Blueberry Muffins, a clone of the sugar-crusted muffins once served in the top-floor café at Jordan Marsh, a Boston department store (and New England institution). Jordan's, sadly, is out of business; but their muffins live on.
Remember, rinse and dry those frozen berries before you use them; it DOES make a difference. Enjoy!
Note: To those of you below wondering about losing flavor and nutrients when you rinse the berries, it's true, you probably lose a little bit of the berries' nutrition. But most of the juice (and vitamins) remain inside the berries; and I doubt you could notice a difference in flavor. By all means, use berries without rinsing, if that's your preference. As usual – no baking police here!
May 5, 2023 at 9:03pm
Maybe this is more of a problem with high bush blueberries. I’ve never had this problem with wild Maine blueberries. They’re the only ones that anyone should *ever* bake with.
February 2, 2023 at 9:16am
I use less sugar (1 c) as the wild blueberries are sweeter and I never put sugar on top. The muffins do have bluer streaks w wild berries.
August 28, 2022 at 2:14pm
Thank you so much for the tip about rinsing frozen blueberries. It's so great and my cake came out just great.
I had this recipe for a strawberry sourcream bundt cake which I made and it was wonderful. I had a bunch of frozen blueberries in my freezer and wanted to use them and figured that I could use the same recipe which I used for the strawberry cake.
It was almost better than the strawberry cake(that) was made with fresh strawberries.
Thank you so much for the tip. I only had 2 cups of blueberries and next time I will add another cup. I also made a blueberry glaze which is sensational and can also be used as a topping for ice cream. I would have attached a picture but my family and friends gobbled it all up!! Next time I make it, I will attach a picture. It's very pretty in the bundt pan and no blue/green streaks.(yah)!!
July 15, 2022 at 1:58pm
Thanks for the great tips. As a quick note, there's an error in your last photo caption as you mention "on the right" for both versions of the muffins.
Love King Arthur. Thank you for the great tips and recipes!
July 15, 2022 at 2:18pm
In reply to Thanks for the great tips… by Eric Wood (not verified)
Hi Eric, thanks so much for pointing that out!
February 2, 2023 at 9:05am
In reply to Hi Eric, thanks so much for… by modegard
Yes King Arthur flour but frozen berries need to warm
Up a bit to make putting them
I to muffin cups less difficult. And with wild berries one goes not need to even think about crushing any. In summer I like to use a mix of high bush and wild berries.
February 13, 2022 at 2:01pm
This worked so well! Thank you! I even used frozen blueberries that had been defrosted. I just drained them and dried them and they didn’t bleed.
January 27, 2022 at 4:49am
I read something about coating them in cornstarch or flour to absorb the juices. I hat the idea of rinsing away all those powerful anthocyanins. Am I the only one that thinks this way?
March 17, 2022 at 3:38pm
In reply to I read something about… by Erin (not verified)
I always coat frozen blueberries with some flour and never have a problem with the muffins turning a funny color.
April 12, 2024 at 11:33am
In reply to I always coat frozen… by Sabina Tamburin (not verified)
I wondered about that. Thank you!!
Pagination