Make Blueberries Taste Like Sour Candy With A Sprinkle Of This Seasoning

If you're a huge fan of blueberries and sour candy, there's a viral fruity food hack that you've got to try, but with one small adjustment. The original hack combines granulated sugar and citric acid (which is that white stuff on the outside of sour candies) as a coating for grapes and berries. However, citric acid tends to smack the tongue with so much sour flavor that it can seem to paralyze your taste buds, hence the addition of granulated sugar to balance things out.

Malic acid, on the other hand, is a less sharply acidic sour dust that turns blueberries tangy and candylike with or without the addition of sugar, especially if you water test your blueberries to sort out the sweetest ones. Occurring naturally in fruits like apples, cherries, and tomatoes, malic acid is also available as a crystalline white powder that's fairly easy to find online — just be sure to look for products labeled food-grade, as it's often also used in skin care products.

To create your homemade blueberry sour candy, simply rinse your blueberries, then roll them out on a clean tea towel to wick away excess moisture while leaving enough for the malic acid powder to stick. Toss the malic acid and blueberries together in a bowl to coat, then put the berries in a single layer in a shallow casserole dish in your freezer. Store them in a freezer-safe container and enjoy them frozen when your sour tooth hits.

Though the amount of malic acid you use largely depends on how sour you'd like your blueberries to be, it's always possible to have too much of a good thing, especially when it comes to sour flavor. Malic acid is less sharp than citric acid, but you'll still want to taste a tiny bit of it on a single blueberry to gauge how sour it is before dusting the rest of your berries. If it tastes very strong, you can either use a minimal amount or balance it with a touch of sugar if you feel it's necessary.

Even if you're a connoisseur who loves the mouth-puckering effect from eating sour candy, you should start with less than you think you'll need, tasting the blueberries from the bowl to see if you really want more. Another factor to remember is that some blueberries are sweeter than others, so less ripe berries may require less malic acid to reach your ideal tartness level, while riper ones may require a bit more.

Freezing the blueberries is also important, as it helps set the malic acid on the surface of the berries while giving them a sorbet-like texture. Together, this combination renders a crisp, tangy delight. Just remember to keep them frozen, as allowing your sour blueberries to thaw will just turn them into a sticky, soft, sour mess.