Flour Is Key When Adding Frozen Berries To Desserts

Despite the lure of fresh berries in the produce department, frozen berries are almost always a better choice unless you plan to eat them while they're super fresh. Berries start growing mold in a matter of days, while their frozen counterparts can last in the freezer for weeks or months, and there's nothing sadder than dumping expensive berries in the trash. Frozen berries can also have better color than fresh. If you're planning to make a pie or muffins with frozen fruit, however, they do tend to release more liquid when they're baked up, which is why adding a little flour to your frozen berries is key.

When berries are frozen, they form ice crystals inside, which breaks down the cell walls that hold all the juice. When they're thawed, the frozen liquid is released, which can make a soupy mess of a blueberry pie or a batch of raspberry muffins if there's nothing to soak up all that juice. If you toss frozen berries with a little bit of flour before you add them to the bake, the juice and flour will combine and thicken as your goodies cook. Even better, a little bit of flour will also keep the berries from sinking to the bottom of the pan in bakes like muffins and quick breads.

You don't need a lot of flour for desserts made with frozen berries. About ½ cup is enough to thicken eight cups of berries (which will fill a standard 9-inch pie pan). There's no fancy technique required, either; simply scoop the flour right into the bowl of berries while they're still frozen with any sugar and seasoning you're using for the pie filling, mix everything around until the flour is evenly distributed, and you're good to go. If there's any flour leftover in the bottom of the bowl, dump it right into the pie pan with the berries and stir it into the rest of the filling before you add the top crust.

If you're baking a quick bread or muffins with frozen berries, which already have a lot of flour in the mix, you'll only need enough dry flour to lightly coat the outside of the fruit. One or two tablespoons should do the job, depending on your batch size. Toss the fruit with the flour in a bowl right before you mix the berries into the batter to coat the outsides, then gently fold them into the batter so that you don't over-mix. If you are making something from a boxed mix and don't want to mess around with extra flour, you can also toss the berries with a little bit of the dried ingredients from the mix and get the same results.