Next year for university I'm moving into a new house with a large chest freezer (a big upgrade from my current freezer drawer). I've always been a fan of making fruit smoothies with banana, milk, yoghurts, berries and what not however the biggest problem with this is that since I've moved out I can't afford to keep buying fruit for it to go off. So I have essentially 2 questions
Firstly is it realistic to buy fruit from the market where its cheapest, I'm thinking all fruits from apples to bananas and from berries to mangoes and then just throw them straight in the freezer, will this preserve them ?? Then the next day get them out and throw them straight into a smoothie.
Secondly and more preferably would I be able to buy a lot of fruit make it all into smoothies then put these into containers and freeze them, then get them out the night before so they will defrost and I can drink them for breakfast in the morning.
Thanks in advance
Best Answer
In professional smoothie/frozen youghurt/fruit shake shops, you'll usually see the fruit frozen in small pieces for easy portioning. So raspberrys and blueberrys are fine, but you'd wnat to quarter strawberrys and cube mangoes or apples or kiwis or whatever before freezing them.
The freezing process itself is important to the strucutral integrity of the fruit, and will affect its texture. However, if you only want them for smoothies/blended drinks, that isn't very important.
As a usage note, remember that a home freezer compartment is usually at -4 degrees Celsius, whereas a chest freezer (deep freeze) would more commonly be at -18 degrees. A good blender won't mind either way, but your lips might find it a bit cold.
Also, you might find you can buy the fruit pre-frozen from the same vendors the shops get them, in which case it will be prepared for you, and all you need is to defrost and blend. Aside from saving you the work of peeling and chopping, their freezing process may be better, and it'll probably end up being cheaper too.