For the last four years, Jonathan Smith, owner of Wisconsin-based Alpine Foods, has sold individually quick frozen cranberries to major wholesale food clients. Then, at a restaurant show, he asked the chefs what they love and hate about cranberries.
The consensus was that they are too tart. They can’t be just tossed in a salad; and commercial bakers have long shied away from them because their high acidity kills surrounding leavening in the batter, causing holes in the baked good and an off-flavor.
Thus challenged, Smith, holder of a PhD in cranberry plant physiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, brainstormed a solution: Using nothing more than pressure, vacuum and temperature, he found a way to remove 75% of the acidity from the cranberry but keep the juice intact. Smith's patent-pending process "weeps out" the acid, with the plant acting as its own “molecular sieve," he said.
The resulting Berry Bit cranberries are mildly tart, similar to the hint of sour in a fresh strawberry. Because his early experiments revealed the flavor of a de-acidified cranberry to be flat, a pinch of sugar is added back to the Berry Bits after processing. Cranberries naturally contain 8% sugar; he adds 5% more.
The bits can be eaten without added sugar; they work better in baked goods; are compatible with dairy products and meats, and can be infused with other flavors, even savory ones.
The Berry Bits are currently sold as commercial ingredient to food companies, and are beginning to be introduced to the retail market.
Read the complete story by Nancy Stohs at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.