Blackberry & Apple Crumble

Bramble & Apple Crumble is one of my favourite seasonal indulgences and fortunately, for a couple of months the primary ingredients are available for free, somewhere nearby. It is the quintessential September pudding, so I thought we should share our simple traditional recipe.

Ingredients

• Apples 4-5 large cookers (you can mix with eaters and adjust the sugar accordingly)
• Blackberries, probably about a mug-full.
• Flour 250g
• Rolled Oats 150g
• Natural Unrefined Brown Sugar 50g

Method

1. Peal & core the Apples then cut them into slices.
2. Lay the Apple slices into an oven-proof bowl. Then sprinkle on some Blackberries to form another layer. Sprinkle a small amount of Brown Sugar onto the fruit (not too much, you want to enjoy the sharpness of fruit, contrasting with the sweeter crumble). Repeat until the bowl is full to near the top.
3. Turn on the oven, 180 degrees Centigrade.
4. Now make your crumble topping by rubbing together the flour and butter in a bowl, then mix in the Rolled Oats and the remaining Brown Sugar according to taste.
5. Pour the crumble on to the top of the fruit. Poke it down with your fingers but make sure that it piles up proud of the bowl edge (it will sink down during cooking).
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Centigrade for 40 minutes or until lightly browned on top.

Serve piping hot with cream / creme fresh / ice cream / custard, according to taste. If you somehow fail to consume this tangy treat in one assault, it is equally delicious cold the following day (for breakfast perhaps).

YUM!

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Oodles More Tasty Recipes in Here

More Magical Mulberries

I revisited our old favourite Mulberry tree while it was still fruiting, with a friend. We used different methods to pick the tasty succulent berries. Initially we just reached up and gathered what we could from ground level, but as normal we could see larger darker fruit, annoyingly just out of reach.

So we spread out an old sheet over the ground and then gave the thinner branches a good shake. This method was fairly useful, if somewhat indiscriminate and the Mulberries were easy to spot as they fell.

It was a very enjoyable time and out containers were quickly filled to the brim and beyond. Obviously we had to eat some before we could gently squeeze the lids on. Then we cycled off contented and coated in sweet sticky juice.

When I got home, I decided to freeze my delicious hoard and decide how to use them later. I laid them out on baking trays before slotting them into the freezer, then bagged them up later. This means you can choose exactly how many you want to use at any time later on.

Hopkins made a smashing smoothie with some of her Mulberries - the recipe follows...

• 1 frozen banana 
• 1 Handful of mulberries
• 2 cm fresh ginger (grated)
• 1 cup rice milk (or any other milk) 

BLEND...

CONSUME!

Blackberries are particularly abundant at the moment and Hazel nuts will soon be dropping too. We made our first Bramble and Apple crumble of the year - hopefully there will be many more to come.