Dehydrate blueberries and make blueberry powder

Use wild blueberries for wild colour!

Blueberries are a well-known nutrient-packed berry, chock full of vitamins and antioxidants. They’re obviously delicious when they’re fresh but, if you have an abundance, have you considered dehydrating them? The drying process prolongs their shelf life so you can avoid wastage and enjoy blueberries out of season. Once they’re dried and stored properly, blueberries last for up to a year or even longer.

Dehydrated blueberries make an excellent fun snack that serve as a delicious alternative to sultanas and raisins. There are many ways to enjoy these sweet treats. Add dried blueberries to your favourite muffins, cakes and cereal for a burst of flavour, colour and nutritional boost.

Any type of blueberry can be dehydrated. Wild, home grown, store-bought or frozen. Depending on where you live or the time of year, frozen blueberries may be your only option.

BLUEBERRY POWDER

Dehydrated blueberries are a culinary joy but blending then into a powder extends the usefulness of your blueberry harvest to the next level.

The high levels of the antioxidant called anthocyanin in blueberries works its magic as a natural food colouring. Anthocyanin pigments are concentrated in the skin and give blueberries their intense blue-purple colour. Because one cup of tiny wild blueberries yields more berries than one cup of cultivated berries (which are much larger in size) there is a higher ratio of skin pigment when blending wild blueberries. We mixed a teaspoon of wild blueberry powder and cultivated blueberry powder with yogurt to show the difference in pigmentation. Amazing right!  

Here’s some inspiration for using it: 

• Mix in a teaspoon to create natural colouring for frosting & icing
• Add it to hot or cold cereal
• Add it too homemade lemonade or fermented drinks
• Add it to muffins, cakes, breads
• Blend it into smoothies
• Transform the colour and taste of homemade yogurt, naturally.  

PREPARING BLUEBERRIES

FRESH BLUEBERRIES - Preparing fresh blueberries is a bit fiddly but well worth the extra effort and saves time in the Breeze food dehydrator. Fresh blueberries have a high-water content, and skins that will not perforate on their own, locking in all that water. The most essential step with fresh blueberries is to break the skins of each and every berry. We tested several methods, including blanching the berries in hot water and discovered that slicing the blueberries one by one was by far the most efficient method. Blanched blueberries took twice as long to dehydrate and lacked flavour.  

FROZEN BLUEBERRIES - If you are using frozen blueberries, either cultivated or wild, you can simply thaw the berries and then place them straight on the dehydrator trays. No pre-treatment is required.

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