Frozen fruits

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love fruits. I am a fruit monster and I talk at length about my love affair with fruits in this article. 

My love for fruit leads me to forage them (I always seem to find myself living near a rich source of blackberries) and so I started to freeze blackberries as a way to prolong their lifespan, with the intention of cooking them later. I even bought a freezer for this purpose and gathered my extended family to come and help me with the picking. But this one time I fancied something cool and refreshing, so I started eating a frozen banana. And I felt spellbound by its cooling sweet and creamy taste.

Then, I tried frozen blueberries, raspberries and currants: I randomly saw them in the supermarket and I couldn’t resist the instinct of picking them up. As I settled in the park with my shopping, the instinct of trying them in their frozen state was too hard to resist. It was love at first taste. Since then, I’ve realised that I love some frozen fruits (mainly bananas, blueberries and grapes) more than the fresh ones and here is why:

1. They have a more intense taste

   When frozen, blueberries have a deeper taste and a thicker texture – I love to bite into them. I find that the fructose expands and condenses, which makes some frozen fruit a lot sweeter than their fresh alternatives.

   My favourite all time food combo is sliced banana topped with peanut butter. I talk more about this food obsession here. However, I’ve recently experimented with frozen banana topped with peanut butter and I loved it so much more. As the frozen banana pieces start to melt, the creamy peanut butter blends in with the frozen banana, so, to me, it’s like an instant piece of banana-peanut butter ice cream.   

2. You can enjoy them for longer

Like with anything cold or frozen, you eat frozen fruit slowly, so they enable you to eat them more mindfully and to savour their flavour for longer. Also, as the taste is quite powerful, I find that I can prolong a snack of frozen fruit for at least half an hour, which is a perfect work companion, when I feel the need of a boost now and then.

1. They are so versatile

   Frozen fruit can be enjoyed in so many different and fun ways and they enable and lead you to get really creative in the kitchen. Here my top 10 favourite recipes with frozen fruit:

• Raw cheesecake: a dash of mashed up frozen blueberries turns any raw cheesecake into a whirlwind of deliciousness. Not to mention that the juice of frozen blueberries makes the cheesecake look artistically presentable. Also, I dream of making a raw cheesecake with blended frozen bananas as the filling instead of the instead of blended soaked cashews and almond milk.    

• Ice lollies – a really fun way to enjoy loads of fruits when it’s hot, without being worried about any added sugar or unnecessary calories and chemicals. Just blend in a cup of ice cubes with a cup of frozen berries, and mould them into ice lolly moulds, then freeze them for a few hours. You can buy ice lolly moulds from Amazon here.  

• Snow cone – if you don’t have ice mould, you can just arrange your frozen fruit into a snow cone. ‘

• Fun ice cubes – I love to put sliced berries into an ice cube tray, so I can enjoy flavoured ice water. Not to mention, that the berry infused ice cubed make me drink water a lot quicker, so I can get to enjoy the good fruit trapped inside the ice cubes. You can buy funny shapes ice cubes, such as these ones, if you want to get creative with your drinks.

  Or, if you don’t have the time or patience to wait for your fruit ice cubes to get formed in the freezer, you can just use your frozen fruit as “ice cubes” on their own. The beauty of frozen fruit if that they get stuck together, so you can take a little block of blueberries and put it in your glass of water. As they start to unfreeze, the frozen fruit will start to separate and fall down at the bottom of the glass, realising their flavours.  

• Toppings for yoghurt – not long ago, I’ve experimented with topping my soya yoghurt (my favourite) with frozen berries and grapes and cacao sprinkle. It tastes divine, much better than yoghurt with a topping of fruit at room temperature.

• Smoothies and smoothie bowls – I love throwing any frozen fruit, including exotic ones like pineapple and mango pieces into a cooling smoothie blend. Also, frozen banana and forrest fruit like blackberries and currants blended with spinach and acai make a delicious and nutritious smoothie bowl.

• Hot bakes. It may sound like an oxymoron, mixing frozen with hot. However, it works and it tastes delicious. Any frozen fruit that you cannot enjoy raw, as I’ve described above, can be thrown into a crumble or a pie. I don’t even wait for them to defrost and instead just put less water into whatever I bake, as I know that frozen fruits will release the additional water they have accumulated during the freezing process. I once fancied making a blackberry crumble, so I simply put the frozen blackberries on a pan on the hob and once the released all their water under the heat, I threw some granola and cinnamon and stirred them through and then put them in the hot oven.