We've all eaten blueberry muffins, pie, ice cream, etc., and experienced the flavor we associate with blueberries. Recently I've tried my hand at making blueberry compotes with fresh berries and the results are bland -- totally lacking the intense flavor profile found in commercial products.
So, is the secret of blueberry flavor found outside the berries themselves? An additive, perhaps even something (gasp) artificial?
If you're using "regular" blueberries, maybe try wild? The season is short for fresh wild bb if you can even get them where you are, but if you have Trader Joes they sell frozen wild, at least ours do. (Though I'm guessing wild blueberries are not involved in most commercial products...)
A wild-ish guess: a lot of the flavor of a blueberry is in its skin. If you're straining the skins out of your compote, that might account for the blandness.
I left the skins in the compote, it's just blueberries and sweetener simmered until the berries burst and juiced out. Looks wonderful, but it has almost no flavor.
I'm out of ideas, then, except for this fairly stupid question: Do the blueberries taste okay before you cook them? And, have you tried adding a little lemon juice or zest? The recipes I see online all call for it.
Yeah, some varieties are just insipid to begin with, others have more acidity. Lemon or lime can definitely help.
and blueberry season is short -- just a few weeks. at least in new england.
most berries i buy in the supermarket are pretty watery tasting so i don't bother and just enjoy the local fruits when in-season. you don't mention how you are sourcing yours.
There are early and late varieties, but yes, any one variety only produces for a few weeks. Blueberries are frequently are not labeled with variety, but last summer some of the more local berries (OR or WA) were, and some were definitely more to my taste than others. Unfortunately I don't recall the names.
In addition to lemon or lime, I also like a hint of spice with blueberries - nutmeg, ginger, or cardamom. A splash of complimentary liqueur can also help, I'd use raspberry/chambord with blueberries.
That was my thought. Many recipes add lemon juice. Helps flavor to pop.
I hate to say it, but there is absolutely artificial blueberry flavor in commercial products. They've just taken the ester that forms the basis for the flavor of blueberries and replicated it and intensified it.
It's a rare "real" blueberry that comes close to that flavor anymore. Wild blueberries are best, but expensive and not easily come by.
You might want to experiment with reducing your blueberry mixture to the point where it's almost a concentrate and see if that gets you closer to the flavor you want. You could then mix that in with some less-cooked-down fruit for your compote. (Also agree that acidity would help!)
The 'secret' ingredient is sugar!!! and a hint of lemon.
It brings the flavor, especially blueberries, out.
If you jam, as I do, you'll understand ! I make a killer tasting blueberry jam.
Where are you, and where are the berries you've been using coming from? I guess it's getting to be that time, but since they're a temperate zone crop, it seems kind of early for Nort American blueberries, and most of the big-producer stuff that gets flown in from far-flung areas is never my idea of wonderful. (I assume for the same reasons so much large-scale produce is usually "reliably decent but rarely great" - because the varieties the huge growers plant are chosen more for "production" characteristics - disease tolerance, heavy, uniform production, ease of picking, etc - rather than primarily for their flavor, and usually seem slightly under-ripe to me, which also isn't surprising since fully ripe blueberries are, after all, fairly fragile and probably wouldn't survive a plane ride from Chile all that well...) If you *can* get local berries in season, check those out, and if you have the space for them, freezing as much of those as you can use and store, at the height of the season, might be your best option...
As for blueberry flavoring, I've never tried any of them, but personally, while I find the "real thing" is often preferable to man-made attempts to replicate them, I've never made a fetish of "natural-ness" and see no reason not to use one as a "flavor booster" if you can find something you like and it doesn't turn out to clash with berries themselves... (Like vanilla. Artificial vanilla actually works better than the real thing in some cases, but doesn't mix well with with the much more complex flavor and aroma of the Real Thing.) Unfortunately, I have no idea where to suggest you look for a good, not overpriced version, but a general web search and then looking for commercial-type bakery or candy-making suppliers among the search results might turn up something useful.
I read the post on Serious Eats by Stella Parks about blueberry muffins. She said that a little bit of coriander boosts the blueberry flavor, like espresso powder boosts chocolate flavor. I tried it and she is correct. You don't taste the coriander, but the blueberry flavor is heightened.
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