Blueberry "Brownies"
But with no chocolate in sight, hear me out!!
When I first started this newsletter it was sparse. Basically a “Hello all! This week I made {insert three links here}, now goodbye!”
This newsletter will be similar. Sparse. We have one Very Good Recipe, and three reasons it’s so uniquely delicious. Happy Memorial Day Weekend, lovers <3
To clarify, Blueberry “Brownies” aren’t chocolately at all. They look like a brownie, but taste like an intensely sweet berry cake. The goal is to kidnap the crackly-top-fudgey-center-extra-moist-texture of brownies, but with a blueish-purple color and a completely blueberry taste.
Blueberry “cake” felt like an ill fitting name, since there’s not much cakiness to it. Blueberry “bars” felt equally wrong, since it’s too soft to fall into bar territory. I chose to name it after its inspiration - my fever dream of “what if we could have brownie texture, but instead of melting chocolate we blend fruit?” - so that’s how we got “Blueberry Brownies,” but with no cocoa in sight.
We do start with a brownie method. Not all brownie recipes are the same, but you’ll find many start with melting chocolate, butter and occasionally sugar together using the double-boiler method. This does the same, opting to thaw and smash frozen blueberries alongside butter and white chocolate (see the image on the far left above).
This kick-starts the intense blueberry flavor and primes the batter for a fudgey texture. Since white chocolate is essentially cocoa butter, we’re just melting down more fat. Delicious.
Then we inject it with two more additions of blueberry. First, for the flavor, second, because we have to make it properly blue (or purple, or purplish-blue-brown).
I call for crushed freeze-dried berries. Since these can be hard to find, you can use any kind of berry. I find they all lend a similar sharpness, tartness and acidity to the relatively sweet batter. This is a way to maximize flavor, it doesn’t really impact the color or texture that much. So if your freeze-dried berry stock is low, don’t sweat it.
The next addition is blended up blueberries with a little bit of lemon juice. The lemon juice amps up the color of the berries, while having a nice acidic kick really balances out the batter. It is added near the end, so you get to watch a weirdly brown batter turn bright purple in a few mixes.
As an important side character, almond flour is in the mix. If this were to be only all-purpose flour, we’d head into cakey territory very quickly. Almond flour absorbs moisture while adding structure, making it the secret ingredient for the denseness and moisture in these brownies.
Sadly, this is the one thing you cannot skip.
At the end of the day, we’re in the “this looks like a brownie but tastes like a berry” category. My favorite kind of category, especially as we start off summer and want sweet things, but not super heavy things (… chocoholics may disagree).
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Blueberry Brownies
Makes one 9-inch round cake pan, 8-12 servings
Ingredients
3/4 bar (84g) white chocolate, chopped and divided
2 cups (226g) frozen blueberries, divided
