Product Review: Berry Fresh Freeze Dried Berry Powder

Berry Fresh Freeze Dried Fruit Powder used in this review, provided by Berry Fresh Australia

It is a truth universally acknowledged that fruit and cake go together like, well, fruit and cake! Sweet and sour, tangy and bitter, fruit adds flavour, fun, and freshness to a range of bakes.

The kicker is, fruit is finicky. Fruit spoils, or may not be in season, or requires lots of preparation, or is expensive or some other impediment. Frozen fruit, particularly freeze dried fruit, is a great way to use fruits out of season, and with a minimum of fuss.

Finding good quality freeze dried fruit, preferably from a country with high food safety standards, isn’t always an easy task. So when I heard glowing reviews from all my Aussie cake buddies about a new freeze dried kid on the block, and grown and processed right here in Australia, I couldn’t wait to give it a try, and thanks to the folks at Berry Fresh, I had a set of freeze dried fruits to play with.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Hands down the best part about Berry Fresh is not only that the berries are processed here in Oz, but GROWN here too. Can’t stress enough how important that is. Not only do I want to support Aussie companies and growers, but Australia has some of the highest food safety standards in the world, from seed to feed, so anything made here will immediately get my interest.

Smells like berry spirit

When you open the canisters, you won’t smell much, a faint ‘green leaf’ smell, which is what berries actually smell like, not the Pixie raves of artificial flavours and colours.

What happens when I add it to Buttercream?

Unicorns get their wings. If you caught my Facebook LIVE, you’ll know my reaction was ‘positive’ lol.

In Basic Buttercream, it tastes like Strawberry Shortcake and Angels made frosting. Utter perfection. Big fan. MAY have eaten it by the spoon.

Can neither confirm nor deny. Ahem

How do I use it?

Put it in Buttercream for goodness sake! It tastes like Fairies!!!

But seriously, you can add it to pretty much anything, it bakes well too apparently (so my friends that love this stuff tell me). You can also reconstitute it to a pulp by adding a little water, perfect for when you want the flavour, but want something akin to the original texture.

I tried both in Buttercream, both worked great, however the reconstituted one didn’t affect the texture as much as the powdered version, which ‘slightly’ dried the mix, so maybe consider adding a splash of liquid to keep your original texture intact.

Do I need it?

If you like using fruit in your bakes, yes. Its stable, easier to use than fresh, watery, possibly acidic fruit pulp, and its always fresh.

Why Berry Fresh? Well use any brand you like really, but I will be using Berry Fresh, because its Australian Grown and processed, and by an Australian company, so that gets my vote immediately. Come for the high food standards, stay for the sugar high.

I may have eaten too much Strawberry Buttercream. I see can see sounds #worthit

Viva La Buttercream x

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