8 Amazing Things You Can Do With Cloudberries [w/ Recipes]
Cloudberries are both tasty and versatile. There are numerous delicious desserts, treats, and side dishes you can create with them. We have 8 delectable ideas for you: Jam, Raw-stirred, Marmalade, Pie, Parfait, Tea, Sauce, and Muffins—all with recipes!
In Scandinavia, we call a year with an abundance of cloudberries a 'Cloudberry year.' I personally refer to it as a 'Golden year' because they are worth their weight in gold! These Golden Years yield an abundance of cloudberries just waiting to be picked. Imagine yourself out on the mosses, filling your buckets with these golden delights.
When you return home, you realize that your buckets, filled to the brim with these golden delights, must be taken care of. You can't afford not to! You've worked too hard for them. That's when the question arises: what do you do with all these beautiful berries?
Some of them can be enjoyed as they are—fresh cloudberries with some ice cream are delicious! However, the berries won't stay fresh for long. You need to create something with them. You can freeze some of them as they are to keep them fresh longer.
But there's so much more you can do with your cloudberries if you're willing to invest some time and energy! This article aims to inspire you to make cloudberry jam, raw-stirred cloudberries, marmalade, pie, parfait, and more!
Don't forget to check out our very own non-scientific taste test where we try out these different cloudberry recipes. Two adults and three children of different ages participated. You can find the article here: What Do Cloudberries Taste Like? [5 Care Omnia Taste Tests!].
Table of Contents
Recipe For A Traditional Cloudberry Jam
Cloudberry jam is a fantastic jam that is not overly sweet. The texture has a crunchy touch because of the seeds in the jam. The seeds aren't hard so they won't bother you at all.
It has a nice balance between sweetness and sourness. You can freeze your jam to make it last even longer.
Cloudberry jam goes well with a lot of different dishes; fish, pork, desserts or pastries.
You can also use some of the jam to make a flavorsome cold cloudberry sauce or some delicious muffins. So if you're making some cloudberry jam, I suggest you do a lot of it!
Recipe for Traditional Cloudberry Jam
A traditional Scandinavian recipe for a tasty cloudberry jam.
Category: Jam
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Prep Time: 120 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients (about 25 servings)
- 2.2 lb cloudberries (1kg)
- 2.1 cups of sugar (500g)
- Possibly 1 pinch of sodium benzoate
Instructions
- Clean and rinse the berries
- Put them in layers of berries and sugar in a pot. NOTE! Do not stir the pot, shake it back and forth every now and then
- Let the pot stand cool for 1-2 hours. If you use frozen berries, let them thaw just before you add the sugar
- Slowly cook on low heat under lid for about 10-15 minutes until the berries looks soft and finished. Stir and shake the berries in the pot while you're cooking it
- Remove the pot from the heat, leave for a while and remove any foam
- Cloudberries contain natural sodium benzoate but if you are planning to keep the cloudberry jam at temperatures higher than 50 degrees F (10 degrees C), i.e. not in the refrigerator, add 1 pinch of sodium benzoate when the jam is finished
- Pour the jam in clean hot jars, up to the edge, so that you minimize the air inside of the jar. Seal the jar immediately. Don't forget to clean and heat the lids aswell
Place the jars in a cool and dark place for storage. Enjoy and try to ration it until the next Golden Year!
If your stash of delicious home-made cloudberry jam runs out, I urge you to go to our page Recommended By Care Omnia: Cloudberries where we list all of the different cloudberry products we can wholeheartedly recommend.
Raw-Stirred Cloudberry Jam, No Cooking Required
Raw-stirred cloudberry jam is common in Scandinavia. You get all of the flavors from the fresh cloudberries in jam-form. The raw-stirred jam has two great advantages over the traditional cloudberry jam.
The first and foremost advantage is that there is less sugar added to raw-stirred cloudberries. There are several positive health aspects of eating less sugar.
The other big advantage comes from the fact that you don't cook or heat raw-stirred cloudberry jam. This means that all the nutrients are preserved in the raw-stirred cloudberries. Some of the nutrients found in cloudberries, like vitamin C, are sensitive to heating. ◳
It's easy and quick to make raw-stirred cloudberry jam yourself. It does not matter if the cloudberries are fresh or frozen. If you're going to use frozen berries when making raw-stirred cloudberries, thaw them first to get the best results.
My Raw-stirred Cloudberry Jam Recipe
A Scandinavian alternative to jam, no cooking, less sugar and with all the nutrients and flavors intact.
Category: Jam
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Calories: 120
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients (About 20 servings)
- 18 oz of cloudberries (5 dl)
- 5 oz of sugar (1.5 dl)
Instructions
- Mix sugar and cloudberries in a bowl
- Gently stir until the sugar has dissolved
Let it rest for a while (15 minutes) before serving.
Cloudberry Marmalade, Perfect For Your Breakfast Toast
Cloudberry marmalade is a pretty sweet sour marmalade that is a luxurious treat! It fits perfect on the cheese tray or if you just want to spoil yourself with a little treat..
Together with blue cheese or brie, it's a perfect combination that you won't easily forget!
It also goes great together with cheese like Camembert or Roquefort. A unique aperitif to your next party, perhaps?
My Cloudberry Marmalade Recipe
Sweet and thick, perfect for those special occasions!
Category: Marmalade
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Calories: 120
Prep Time: 65 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients (about 25 servings)
- 2.20 lb cloudberries (fresh or frozen)
- 1.3 lb of sugar
- 1 lemon
Instructions
- Rinse the berries
- Put the berries and the sugar in a big saucepan
- Put on a lid and leave the berries in for about an hour so they get a chance to juice
- Gently heat up the berries and allow to boil for 10 minutes on low heat. Keep the lid on
- Remove the pan from the heat
- Squeeze in the lemon juice
- Mash the berries
- Strain through a fine sieve
- Pour the marmalade in clean jars and put on the lid immediately
- Let the marmalade jell (cool off)
- Store the marmalade in a cool, dark place
Enjoy! Please remember to keep the opened jar in the refrigerator.
Warm Cloudberry Crumble Pie
There is a pie in Sweden that's called “Gold of the North”. It’s a pie that works as a fantastic dessert or just as it is for that "Swedish Fika". A warm crumble pie with cold ice-cream, delicious!
Cloudberries are often called “The gold of the forest” in Scandinavia.
In Sweden you can actually find cloudberries all over the country, but there's a bit higher concentration of cloudberries in the northern part of Sweden.
It's from the northern wilderness that this cloudberry pie comes from.
My Cloudberry Pie Recipe
A crumble cloudberry pie that's just fantastic!
Category: Pie
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Calories: 120
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients (6 servings)
- 17 oz cloudberries (4 - 5 dl)
- 2 tablespoons of potato flour
- 5,3 oz butter (150 g)
- 7 oz wheat flour (2 dl)
- 7 oz oats (2 dl)
- 5 oz sugar (1 1/2 dl)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- I recommend ice cream for serving
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 200 C or 180 C fan or gas 6
- Mix the cloudberries and the potato flour
- Place the berries in an oven-proof form
- Melt the butter
- Mix wheat flour, oats, sugar and baking powder in a bowl and pour in the butter while stirring
- Distribute the dough over the berries and sprinkle on some extra oats
- Bake for 25-30 minutes
Serve the cloudberry pie with some ice-cream for that extra touch. I recommend real vanilla ice-cream. Delicious!
TMWant To Impress Your Guests With A Unique Dessert? Serve A Cloudberry Parfait!
Parfait is a form of ice cream with a lot of cream. The difference between plain ice cream and parfait is that ice cream is frozen while stirring, while with the parfait you don't stir it while you freeze it, you just leave it be.
This recipe of cloudberry parfait, I would say, is more like ice cream, but it does have some of that extra creaminess.
And it tastes heavenly! An advantage of this dessert is that it can be prepared well in advance.
That's perfect if you don't want to stand in the kitchen when your guests have arrived.
With this desert you'll be the perfect host; present for your guests while still being able to impress them with your cooking skills!
My Cloudberry Parfait Recipe
A great way to impress your guest or if you have something to celebrate!
Category: Desert
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Calories: 120
Prep Time: 480 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients (6 servings)
- 8,8 oz deep-frozen cloudberries (250g)
- 4 egg yolks
- 4 oz icing sugar (1 dl)
- 4 oz juice, of the cloudberries (1 dl)
- 14 oz whipped cream (4 dl)
- Garnish: 4 oz heated cloudberry jam (1 dl)
Instructions
- Thaw the berries and save 4 oz of the juice
- Mix the sugar, egg yolks and the juice in a saucepan and simmer while stirring until the batter thickens
- Allow the batter to cool down. Stir occasionally
- Mash the berries
- Whip the cream and mix it with the batter and berries
- Freeze the parfait for at least 6 hours
- About 1 hour before serving the parfait, take it out from the freezer and place it in your refrigerator.
- Just before serving, put it on the serving tray. If it's stuck, try and dip the cake pan for a moment in hot water.
- I recommend you pour some heated cloudberry jam on top just before serving!
Remember, that the parfait can be made well in advance and you can store it for about 3 months in the freezer.
Cloudberry Tea, If You Remember To Bring Back Some Leaves
Cloudberry tea is easy to make if you have access to cloudberry bushes. Try picking the leaves at the same time you're picking the actual berries. Although, why not come back and get the leaves later?
To make a good tea it is preferable that you pick the leaves when there is dry weather so that the leaves aren't unnecessary wet.
Dry the leaves spread out on a newspaper. It needs to be an airy and preferably dark place.
Mix around the leaves occasionally until the leaves are completely dry. The faster they dry, the better.
The leaves are perfect when you can crumble them between your fingers. Store them in cans.
The taste comes to it’s full potential if you crumble the leaves just as you are about to use them, so if you're able; store them whole.
What You Can Make If You Have Cloudberry Jam
If you've made lots of cloudberry jam or even bought the jam there are many absolutely mouth watering dishes you can do with it.
There are many nice cloudberry jams available in well-stocked stores. It's plan B, if you aren't able or don't have the time to go out and pick the berries yourself.
I think that cloudberry jam is quite expensive, but it's worth it. The flavors that emerges when you add some cloudberry jam to a dish is unbelievable.
The reason cloudberries are expensive is because they are difficult to cultivate.
So almost every berry on the market have been handpicked by people who make a living by picking berries. By hand, without machines...so the effort they put in to picking these nuggets of gold is tremendous.
The berries like it moist and damp. They grow best on mosses and marshes. So you have to be prepared to go out there if you're planning on picking some cloudberries.
We've written an article about the hunt for cloudberries where we cover where they grow and how to find them.
Here's a few recipes that include cloudberry jam that I recommend you try!
We also recommend a delicious jam in our page Recommended By Care Omnia: Cloudberries if you're interested in buying the jam to test out these fantastic recipes.
Cloudberry Sauce To Spice Up Your Meal
You can make a cold cloudberry sauce that fits perfectly with a lot of different types of dishes. It is especially good though to hot-smoked salmon, but fits almost just as good with meats.
The great taste of the sweet and sour jam from the sauce combined with the smoked salmon makes for a treat that's hard to forget or stop eating.
I would say that cloudberry sauce is nothing but delicious!
This sauce is so easy to do; you just have to stir it together and serve it.
Can't be simpler than that.
My Cloudberry Sauce Recipe
This sauce works wonder together with some smoked salmon, but also tastes perfect to pork!
Category: Sauce
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Calories: 120
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Ingredients (8 servings)
- 2 oz cloudberry jam (0.5 dl)
- 9 oz crème fraîche (2,5 dl)
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Mix the jam and crème fraiche
- Season with salt and pepper, to your liking
Remember to try this one with smoked salmon. You won't regret it! Enjoy!
Swedish Fika? Have Some Cloudberry Jam Muffins!
Muffins are perfect to serve if you are having people over for a coffee, or if you want to spice up your "Swedish Fika". Muffins are also a perfect way to spoil yourself with a little treat.
Muffins are usually quite easy to do. Stir together the batter and then bake them quickly in the oven.
If you don’t have a special muffin pan, you can just pour the batter in muffin cases and place them on a metal sheet in your oven.
My Cloudberry Jam Muffins Recipe
Who wouldn't like a nice warm muffin or cupcake that's filled with some golden jam?
Category: Pastry
Cuisine: Scandinavian
Calories: 120
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients (12 muffins)
- 5.3 oz butter (150 g)
- 7 oz sugar (2dl)
- 4 eggs
- 14 oz wheat flour (4 dl)
- 2 teaspoon vanilla sugar
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 4 oz of milk (1dl)
- Filling: 4 oz cloudberry jam (1 dl)
Instructions
- Stir the butter and sugar airy, preferably with a hand mixer
- Add the eggs, one at a time, and stir vigorously between them
- Mix the flour with vanilla sugar and baking soda
- Pour the flour mixture and the milk into the batter and stir until it’s smooth
- Pour the batter into a 12-pcs muffin pan
- Make a small pit in each muffin and put a spoon of jam in each
- Bake in the oven at 200C or 180C fan or gas 6 for about 15 minutes
Let the muffins remain in the pan for a few minutes before you remove them from the pan and let them cool down.
Where to buy Cloudberries or Cloudberry Jam?
There are times when you just don’t have the time or the energy to make a jam yourself. You might not even have the possibility to pick fresh ones yourself. We've put together a list of cloudberry products that we wholeheartedly recommend. If you're interested.
Conclusion: Did I Manage To Inspire You?
I love cloudberries and all the things you can do with it!
Cloudberries are really amazing and I hope I managed to inspire you to try it out yourself!
Can you make a cloudberry jam without cooking?
Yes, in Scandinavia it’s common to raw-stir jam. It’s very easy and has great health advantages over the more traditional jam. You put you berries in a bowl, add sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Let it rest for a while and then serve!
How do you get the most flavor of cloudberries in your tea?
The best way to get the most flavor in your tea is to dry and store the leaves whole. You should crumble the leaves just before using them. That will boost your tea to new aromatic heights!
Can you use cloudberries in desserts?
Yes, of course! You can use cloudberries in a lot of different desserts. Why not put together an easily made crumble pie? Or impress your guests with a cloudberry parfait. You can also easily make delicious cloudberry muffins.
Can you make a smooth marmalade of cloudberries?
Yes, you can definitely make a smooth delicious marmalade of cloudberries. What you have to remember is to strain out the seeds through a fine sieve so that your marmalade doesn’t have any seeds in it. The marmalade will work wonders on your toast as well as on your cheese tray!
