Too early in spring. Too late in summer. Midwinter. We know the temptation to buy those tempting pints of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries even when we know they’re a little–or a lot–less than perfect.
The solution is simple. Just douse the little roly-polies with simple syrup and roll them in ordinary granulated sugar. The whole process requires just a saucepan and a clean brush of some sort. The sweet little somethings that result turn even eye-twitchingly tart berries into an eye-catching embellishment for ice cream and coconut cake and cheesecake and, oh my, truth be told, just about anything.–Renee Schettler Rossi
LC Broad Brushstrokes Note
Unlike painting the walls of your domicile, painting berries requires little exactitude and far, far less prep work. There are no worries about brushstrokes showing. No concern if a little too much dribbled off onto the carpet, er, parchment. Just paint to your heart’s content seeing as all manner of sloppiness or sin will be disguised by a sprinkling of sugar. Best yet, you can lick your fingers afterward rather than scrub them with turpentine. You’re welcome.
Special Equipment: A new, clean pastry or paint or watercolor brush
Sugar-Dipped Fruit Recipe
Ingredients
- Simple syrup
- Berries of all shapes and colors, or, come midwinter, kumquats
- Granulated sugar
Directions
- 1. Let the simple syrup cool to room temperature or, if you have it stashed in the fridge, you can use it chilled.
- 2. Rinse the berries or kumquats and pat them dry. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour the sugar into a shallow bowl.
- 3. Place the fruit in a single layer on the parchment. Lightly dip your brush in the simple syrup and paint the berries, avoiding the hull portion if using strawberries. Allow any excess syrup to drip off and then roll the fruit in the sugar to evenly coat. Set the fruit aside on the parchment to dry until no longer sticky.
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I love fruit this way, its so dramatic for a presentation, everyone thinks you are a gourmet chef when you serve it…..and perfect for berry season, which is now here!
Exactly, berkshiregirlonline! We couldn’t agree more. So glad you like it, too.
Sounds delicious! I am trying this out for a work function tomorrow. Thanks for sharing.
Lucy B, and we hope you’ll come back and tell us what you thought. Happy functioning!
Just tried this recipe this morning and it is perfect. The sugar coated blueberries made a great addition to my chocolate cake and looked very professional.
Gorgeous Lucy B. Just gorgeous. I’m so glad the recipe worked so well for your cake. Happy holidays!
Lovely, Lucy B! Many thanks for sharing…
I used turbinado sugar (raw) on big fat blackberries….to decorate a brandy alexander cheesecake. The fatter sugar crystals kept their shape and made the berries sparkle.
Nice!
I want to make these tonight for cupcakes I am serving tomorrow. If i leave them on the side, will the berries hold up over night?
Maddy R, I love that you’re going to heap these little lovelies on cupcakes! As for how long they will hold up, to be honest, we devoured all our berries within just a few hours when we tested the recipe. In theory, as long as your kitchen isn’t hot and humid, the sugar-dipped berries should hold up to 24 hours. But if there’s any way you could do them early tomorrow, that would be ideal. Kindly let us know how it goes!