The short of it is I am looking for Blueberrys that would do well in baked goods. I make waffles, and the blueberries at the store are hit or miss. I’ve had a Northland going on 3 years now, and love the taste and size of the berries (smaller than store bought).
Here in the forum I’ve heard good things on Ka-Bluey and Cara’s choice. Would one be better than the other? Or are there other varieties that may be better than that?
I also own Aurora, Pink Lemonade, and Sweetheart. But it won’t be till next year that I get a sizeable crop for the later two.
I think ‘Jersey’ is worth considering. It’s a really productive wild selection (not from a breeding program), and it has a lot of flavor with fruit that’s not too big (cause you don’t want the berries to be too big for baking).
I’d look into Mini Blues as well. It’s a newer variety that has small berries and is supposedly very flavorful and productive. I ordered one from One Green World this year to try out.
I’m also trying Cara’s Choice and Ka-Bluey this year because of the recommendations here, but mostly for fresh eating. I wish I had more first hand experience to share, but I will within a year or two.
Rubel was mentioned in another thread here as having small tart berries and supposed to be good for baking. Are you looking for small/large, holds up when cooked/turns to pockets of purple goo, and/or something else?
Depends how you want the berry to be really. Small. Thick skinned and chewy. Thin skinned. Large. Juicy. Sweet. Tart. Flavorful.
We use Brightwell and it’s strong flavorful juicy sweet large berries. Thin skinned. It is an older variety. Lately local fields are using Premier to supplement it.
Premier is much like Brightwell. Bit thicker skin for better marketing. And newer disease resistance.
I liked Pink Lemonade. But of our 4 Blueberries that have yet to leaf; two are Pink Lemonade. Thick the freeze got them.
I’d recommend Honeyberries, they taste similar to blueberries, are easier to take care of (don’t care about the Ph of the soil), and fruit in late may, so you can have a longer season of honeyberries/blueberries.
PH of the soil doesn’t concern me. After killing my first Blueberry 3 years, I have it pretty much figured it out now.
The biggest drawback of honeyberries is the more tart, less sweet flavor. While I haven’t tried them, I do not believe that is what I am looking for. If i had unlimited space I’d definitely try it, but its container city over here already. I really don’t need another plant period, but I got the spring plant buying fever.
Yeah, I’m super excited to try Pink Lemonade. My plant came down with leaf spot last year and I only managed to keep it alive let alone, let the plant grow bigger.
Pink lemonade is not a good variety for baking in my opinion.
They’re medium to large sized for blueberries and really tasty so it’s better to eat them fresh
Fair enough. Read that somewhere else online that they’d be good for baking. Honestly bought one because its a blueberry that’s pink, and while not tasting like pink lemonade, still tastes really good. I’m glad that you & others agree that its very tasty berry. Fingers crossed that I too will like it.
It seems like the size, flavor, and yield are large factors that led to its release. The images below are from the original release paper.
Mini Blues scored 8.6/9 for flavor which seems very promising–that’s personally all I needed to see to want to try it. You can also see from the yield chart that it is very high yielding.
My first year growing them, the flavor was almost nonexistent. Not bad, but just zero flavor. I noticed the bush I bought looked like it hadn’t been pruned in years and was maybe over-producing, so I gave it a very hard prune this year to see if that improves the quality of the remaining fruit.
I haven’t had the same issue. Once you take good care of it for a year it should bounce back. The Perpetua blueberries taste just like regular blueberries from the store to me. They aren’t really for fresh eating because they are so small. It takes a fair amount of time to pick all of the small berries once they are ripe, so I will probably just have the one.
It’s supposed to fruit in summer and fall but hasn’t done that for a couple years. I asked Bushel and Berry about it and they said, “Not receiving enough chill hours over the winter, hot dry summers, and uneven waterings throughout the summer can create a problem for the second bloom.” I am hopeful that since this past winter has been more like a normal winter, except for snowfall, with plenty of chill hours that it will fruit twice this year again.
Good to know. I pruned probably 2/3 of the plant and moved it to a larger container with better soil. We’ll see what happens.
I haven’t gotten a double crop on mine either but that’s okay. I have a lot of late season varieties. I did get a second set of blooms from my Sweetheart variety but it was way too late in the year to produce fruit so I removed the flowers.
For baking in muffins, quick breads or waffles, Friendship blueberry comes to mind. They are small and dark blue with a distinctive flavor described as ‘wild blueberry.’
The first time I picked some, the flavor reminded me of baking blueberry muffins decades ago from a pre-packaged kit that included a small can of blueberries. They may also have the same flavor as fancy muffins I’ve had at a hotel/conference center but minus the chemical/preservative notes.
I usually bake my fruits into pies, but that isn’t practical with Friendship because I’d need several times the berries to make the same volume. A smaller number of berries dispersed in a baked good would work though.
Friendship may be classified as a low-bush blueberry, but it’s as tall any of my other varieties. I grow my blueberries in-ground in Ohio 6a, but still have lots to learn about fertilization, pruning, etc.
