Huckleberries are the flavor of summer in Montana, whether you venture into the woods to find your own or not. Pickers horde them to enjoy all year, reliving memories of summer days with each burst of the sweet, intense fruit. As I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, once I’ve left a mountainside with purple-stained fingers and tongue and a bellyful—perhaps too full—of huckleberries, I use my haul judiciously to stretch out the berry season.

This week’s recipe, pairing huckleberries and rhubarb in a freeform tart, does just that. If you freeze hucks on a tray and then bag them for the freezer, and if you chop and bag rhubarb to freeze, you can make this tart off-season too. Blueberries can stand in for huckleberries if you don’t harvest the wild fruit, and tart apples can stand in for the rhubarb if you don’t grow and freeze the stalks.

Learn more about baking with huckleberries and get the complete recipe for Huckleberry–Rhubarb Galette in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

Huckleberries pack so much flavor that a handful or two can change the tone of a breakfast, snack, or salad. I sprinkle them on Dutch babies and Overnight Sourdough Pancakes or combine them with tarter currants and raspberries atop homemade granola.

On the more savory side, I love the combination of huckleberries and a strong cheese, like brie or blue cheese, served on a bed of mild spinach or spicy arugula with a light DIY salad dressing. They give a surprising twist as a grilled sourdough pizza topping, along with roasted garlic, lemon slices, goat cheese, and pickled pear slices. For a liquid flavor burst, muddle a few into lemonade or a cocktail like a Mega-Mint Mojito.

Because they are so small, hucks scatter more evenly that larger berries when baked into pastries and desserts, and I find they don’t bleed their color as extensively as blueberries, even when baked from frozen. Here are just a few other recipes on the blog that I wrote for—or often swap in—huckleberries. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Huckleberry and Cheese Crepes
• Yogurt Whey Berry Muffins
• Berry Curd
• Big Berry Coffee Cake
• Sour Cream and Cherry Scones
• Strawberry Clafouti (Pudding Cake)

You can also learn more about quickly preserving huckleberries, rhubarb, and other fruits and vegetables in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.