Great Blueberry Recipes

Cooking with Blueberries

Blueberries embody the perfect balance between a delicious, delightful flavor treat and a wholesome, nutritious food. If that isn’t enough to convince you that they’re almost perfect, they’re also easy to use — no peeling, no pitting, and no seeds!

Fresh or frozen, wild or cultivated, you can’t find anything better to put special homemade goodness on your table. Blueberries give snack food a good name and decadent desserts the stamp of approval.

Fresh versus Frozen

Fresh blueberries can be frozen for winter use: Just rinse the fresh blueberries, pat them dry, and put them in freezer containers. They will keep all winter in your freezer.

There is little difference between cooking with fresh and cooking with frozen blueberries. Nutritionally, while the calories remain the same — 90 calories and .7 grams of fat per cup — other nutritional values per cup are somewhat different:

Breakfast Specials

Greet the morning with a homemade blueberry breakfast. From pancakes to coffee cake to crêpes, blueberries fit the bill for both simple and fancy breakfast fare.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES

This batter keeps well for several days in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Make extra to have on hand for a quick midweek breakfast, or add a tablespoon of chocolate chips to the batter for a late-night snack.

1½ cups flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup milk

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon butter ½ cup blueberries

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, egg, and vegetable oil.

2. In a large skillet, melt the butter over low heat. Pour ¼–½ cup of batter into the pan and sprinkle blueberries over the top. Fry until the bubbles that form in the batter leave small holes when they burst. Then flip and cook on the other side until golden brown.

3. Serve with maple or blueberry syrup (see recipe on page 17).

MAKES 6–8 PANCAKES

BLUEBERRY STICKY ROLLS

This is great for a fancy breakfast, and not much more complicated than making muffins. If you have any leftovers, top them with whipped cream and you have a fantastic blueberry shortcake for dessert!

¾ cup plus

2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup water

6 tablespoons butter or margarine

1½ cups plus 2 teaspoons flour

½ teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon ginger

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon salt

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ cup milk

¾ cup blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. In a medium-size saucepan, combine ¾ cup of the sugar, the water, 2 tablespoons of the butter, 2 teaspoons of the flour, the vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon of the salt. Cook over medium heat to a full boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the rest of the flour, sugar, and salt with the baking powder. Then cut in 2 tablespoons of the butter until you have a crumbly mixture. Add the milk and mix gently until a dough forms.

4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface. Sprinkle lightly with flour and pat into a loaf. Roll out the loaf to form a 9 × 12-inch rectangle. Spread the remaining butter on the dough and arrange the blueberries evenly over its surface.