We’ve been harvesting mulberries lately in the evenings. We have 3 big mulberry trees on the edge of our top field that get loaded with berries every spring. It’s a bit of a fight to get them before the birds do! Over the years we’ve used different methods to collect berries–from the kids eating them all without telling me, to focused foraging efforts. The easiest way is for someone to climb the tree and shake them all out onto a tarp. I’ve seen folks also use a sheet, but then the sheet gets all stained and icky from purple juice.
Like your hands.
And your mouth.
So what do you do with all the mulberries you collect?
Mulberries are kind of like softer, milder blackberries, so you can put them in just about any recipe that calls for blackberries or blueberries. They have less sweetness, so you’ll usually want to add a little extra sugar (or whatever your preferred sweetener is). If you get a couple of under-ripe ones they can also be a bit tart like raspberries so watch out for the pink ones!
We do a combination of things with ours. We use our mulberries in smoothies, either fresh or frozen, just like other berries. I tend to add a little extra sweetener if mulberries are the only berry in the smoothie. If combined with equal amounts of strawberries or blueberries, I don’t add any sweetener. We also use them in muffins and cakes–just substitute mulberries into any blueberry recipe. This year I put some mulberries in a tart with strawberries and blueberries (after my yummy peach and berries tarts last summer!) and we’ll be trying some mulberry fruit leather.
Mulberries are actually considered a healthy “superfood,” full of fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. Growing free and wild in the backyard–who knew? {smile} Here’s a short series of posts from Cathy’s Blog about the health benefits of Mulberry Tea, how to grow it, dry it, and generally use it.
Recipes to use up your wild-harvested mulberries!
Mulberry Fruit Leather (at The Comfortable Coop)
Mulberry Cheesecake Bars (at The Comfortable Coop)
Mulberry Syrup (at Simple at Home)
Iron Skillet Mulberry Upside Down Cake (at Dishin and Dishes)
Mulberry Cobbler (at Sharon Glasgow) **Once you have a preferred baking mix (or boxed cake mix!) you pretty much just dump it all in and bake!
Iron Skillet Black Raspberry Cobbler (at Saving Dessert) **Biscuit-type cobbler, just sub the raspberries for mulberries. Yum!
Mulberry Chutney (at Not Out of the Box) **This one was unexpectedly easy if you have the ingredients on hand and very good!
From Scratch Mulberry Pie (from Reformation Acres)
No Bake Mulberry Cheesecake (from Stir it Up)
Mulberry Lime Tart (from Veggie Obsession)
Mulberry Apple Muffins (from Reformation Acres)
Mulberry Jam, pectin free (from Simple at Home)
Mulberry Jam, low sugar pectin (from Cluck Wild Homestead)
Mulberry Coconut Cake (from Australia’s Best Recipes) **Sounds fancy, but actually super easy with normal pantry ingredients.
Vanilla Bean Mulberry Cake (from Amanda’s Cookin’)
Mulberry Scones (from the Italian Next Door)
Mulberry Tea Cake (from SBN)
Mulberry Ice Cream (from Snapguide)
Mulberry Crisp (from Snapguide)
Mulberry Lemonade (from WhiskAffair)
Mulberry Fizz Mocktail (from Glue and Glitter)
Mulberry Galette with Vanilla Sauce (from The Woks of Life) **Basically a tart with a vanilla cream sauce. This “from scratch” crust is super easy!
Mulberry Lemon Yogurt Cake (from Madaline Hall)
Mulberry Crumble Cake (from Cook Republic)
Mulberry Sorbet (from Honest Food)
Mulberry and Lemon Pound Cake (from Epicurepedia)
Mulberry and White Chocolate Cream Tart (from Sweetest Kitchen) **Fairly involved recipe for my style, but sounds so rich!
Gluten-Free Mulberry, Orange, and Almond Tart (from My Darling Lemon Thyme) **This one uses a lot of non-staple ingredients.
Apple and Mulberry Pie (at Peony Lim)
5- Minute Rustic Berry Tart (at Gimme Some Oven) **I use this refrigerator pie crust tart with any fruit we have, all summer long!
While stumbling around looking for great new recipes to try with all these berries overflowing the kitchen, I also ran into a couple other exciting and unexpected finds!
The Barns are Whistling Down Mulberry Gap…by David Lee Fletcher. Stories from the Appalachian section of Virginia–completely revived my love of mountain story-telling and poetry. Worth the read!
A Time of High Cotton…by Frances Payne Bounknight Tyler. “Mulberry” and “High Cotton” together in a search! Wow! {smile} American history. Virginia history. Cotton history. Women farmers history. An outstanding non-fiction pick if any (or all!) of those interest you.
The Mulberry Cottage Series…by Victoria Connelly. City girl turns Country girl, in England, UK. Autobiographical and I always find other peoples farm stories interesting. Also, she’s a big Jane Austen fan, so there’s that. (You can read them FREE with Kindle Unlimited.)
And who knew you can actually buy Mulberry Trees (yes, the live trees to plant in your yard!) from Amazon?!? I had no idea!
Teaching our kiddos to safely wild-forage is one of the really fun parts of having the farm. It’s important from a food source perspective, but it’s also exciting to bring their other lessons into it without pressure. Like “Would John Smith have picked mulberries like this?” Or “how would the Indians have gotten the nuts out of the tree?” Our boys are also big fans of Survivorman and Bear Grylls shows (which are FREE on Prime Video!) and love to see something in our woods that they recognize.
Sharing over at the Farm Fresh Tuesday Blog Hop! Grammy’s Grid! Homestead Blog Hop! Simple Homestead Blog Hop! Family Homesteading and Off the Grid Blog Hop!
Do you eat mulberries or have a great mulberry recipe we could add to the list?
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