Wild Blueberries are a Baker’s Delight
at Standard Baking Co.
For many of its regular customers, nothing defines Standard Baking Co. more than the blueberry scone. “We’ve been doing blueberry-oat scones year round, whereas before they were just seasonal,” said owner Matt James. “They are local,” he said of their featured ingredient, the lowbush Wild Blueberry, “and people like that more and more.” For a Maine business, Wild Blueberries are a local celebrity; they are also a morning staple for those in search of something a little sweet for breakfast.
“People feel better about eating a blueberry scone than a sticky bun,” said James, who along with partner Alison Pray, own the Portland, Maine business known as “bread central” to their customers and the restaurants they supply. The European-style bakery is famous for its baguettes, rustic loaves, and daily specials of brioches, galettes and focaccia. Local, seasonal ingredients are a very big deal for Standard Baking Co., and James said procuring local fruits is one of the best things they can do to fulfill that mission. “With fruits, one of the fun things is to do everything according to the berries and stone fruits that are available locally as much as we can,” he said. “And nothing quite fits that so much as lowbush blueberries.”
To help explain why Wild Blueberries fit the Standard Baking Co. profile so well, James answered some essential questions about the benefits of baking with Wild Blues, starting with the hunger-inducing end results.
- What can be found on the board that features Wild Blueberries?
- We do blueberry-oat scones year round. During the weekends, we do blueberry tarts, with either lemon curd or fraiche pan filling on pastry, and really, we do nothing more to the blueberries than put fresh ones on there with a glaze — there’s no baking, because they taste very good with the pastry. We also do a buckle or a coffee cake with blueberries, and another pastry with blueberries that is sort of a hand-shaped rustic tart. Often we do blueberries with a combination of a stone fruit. They go well with a lot of things — it’s a little jolt of sweet blueberry flavor to go with peaches or nectarines or plums.
- Why do Wild Blues hold a special allure to you and your customers?
- They are “locals,” and when people come here, they are thinking blueberries. We’re in the Pine Tree State so we have this nice, acid-y soil. It creates the conditions they like. They grow to be so small and so low, and it’s not very far for the soil nutrients to go to the berries. We have a lot of people [at Standard Baking Company.] who are interested in local and organic agriculture. It’s interesting for us to learn about the cultivation process. There are many avid gardeners, and some of the kids who work here spend time volunteering on farms, so it’s fun to know this stuff.
- What makes Wild Blueberries an ideal ingredient?
- There are many characteristics that make them particularly good for baking, especially if you compare it to the highbush. For the lowbush, there is a nicer ratio of skin to interior. They hold a nice sweet flavor after baking because they are not as acid-y. They maintain their flavor nicely compared to other berries as well.
- Also, because they have that higher ratio of skin to flesh, they stay true to their original form more than most things. It’s very practical. They can handle being mixed much more easily.
- Fresh or frozen?
- We use the frozen wild blueberries year round. The lowbush berries have less of the interior in the highbush, so they freeze very, very well, and it enables us to be able to use them year round.
- Can you share an insider tip about baking with Wild Blueberries?
- One thing that’s really nice about the lowbush fruits is you can get away with not using as much sugar. All berries are very acidic, and when you bake with them, you need to think about bringing out that sweet quality to offset the acid, as well as how to offset the water content. In that regard, lowbush blueberries retain their sweetness without as much sugar.
Baking with Wild Blues? Get lots of great recipe ideas from Wild Blueberry Recipes.
