I am just back from the school run (that should read school walk as we are lucky enough to be a twenty five minute walk away from school). I enjoy the journey at this time more than any other because of the Autumnal colours and hedgerows bursting with fruits. In a few hours time I'll be picking them up from school and armed with a colander, plan to start collecting the first crop of blackberries.
There is so much that can be done with blackberries. I am a country girl through and through and my happiest childhood memories are of hours spent in a Sussex field picking them to bring back to our mother. She would always make an apple and blackberry crumble. When she died, the recipe went with her so I spent years trying to replicate that flavour, smell and texture of home. I managed to do just that about five years ago and am sharing the recipe here.
Along with that, I've put up the simplest blackberry jam and a variation on a crumble called a Blackberry Crisp. It has a softer, buttery topping than the conventional crumble and is simple to make. When you have finished making all three, here you will find also the wonderful poem, 'Blackberry Picking' by the late great Seamus Heaney.
APPLE AND BLACKBERRY CRUMBLE
For the filling:
3 large bramley apples, peeled, cored and diced.
1 ½ oz butter
12 oz blackberries
5 oz caster sugar
1 pinch of cinnamon (or cloves)
2 fl oz water
For the crumble:
4 oz diced butter
4 oz plain wholemeal flour
4 oz self raising flour
4 oz caster sugar
1 sprinkling of brown sugar
Icing sugar (to dust)
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4.
For the filling:
Put the 2 oz of water to a saucepan, add butter and the heat until melted; then add the apple chunks, sugar and cinnamon, stirring until apples are soft - this should take no more than ten minutes. Add the blackberries to the apple compote and stir very gently (at this point, you could add a clove or two).
Remove from heat after about three minutes.
For the topping:
Thoroughly mix the flour and sugar, then place the diced butter into the mix and using your finger tips, lightly rub the mixture through to make a breadcrumb consistency (you can do this easily in a food processor).
Spoon the fruit into a shallow round or oval oven-proof dish. Sprinkle crumble mixture over the top of fruit until fruit is covered. Dust over with a very little amount of brown sugar.
Place in preheated oven and cook on centre shelf for 20-30 minutes or until the crumble is a light golden brown.
BLACKBERRY CRISP
(a recipe from the wonderful Skye Gyngell)
5 punnets of blackberries
100g/31/2oz caster sugar
The juice and zest of one orange
For the topping
120g/4oz soft brown sugar
140g/41/2oz plain flour
120g/4oz unsalted butter, chilled
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4.
Scatter the berries into an oven-proof serving dish, large enough to hold them comfortably. Sprinkle the sugar casually over the top, along with the orange zest. Pour over the orange juice – but do not bother to stir anything in evenly.
For the topping, place the sugar and flour into a bowl and toss lightly with your fingertips. Grate the butter into the bowl and work the whole lot together, again using your fingers, until it is the texture of course sand.
Scatter the topping fairly evenly over the berries and place on the middle shelf of the oven. Cook uncovered for 20-25 minutes or until the topping is golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly – it is also very good at room temperature. Serve straight from the dish, accompanied by a jug of cold double cream.
BLACKBERRY JAM
(from my mother's Delia Smith recipe book, 1978)
1lb ripe blackberries (450g)
6 fl oz water (175mls)
1 lb granulated sugar (450g)
juice of 1 lemon
Wash the blackberries and place in a heavy-based saucepan with 6 fl oz (170 ml) water, then stew them very gently with a lid on for about 20-25 minutes. Now and then give them a good mash to reduce them to pulp and squeeze as much juice out of them as possible. After that add the sugar and lemon juice to the pan and allow the sugar to dissolve completely, with the heat still low. There must not be any whole granules of sugar left. This takes about 10-15 minutes. Now turn the heat right up and boil fairly rapidly for 8 minutes, stirring now and then to prevent sticking.
Meanwhile warm a large bowl in the oven to get it nice and hot then place the sieve, lined with gauze, over the bowl and pour the blackberry mixture into the lined sieve. Then, using a wooden spoon, get all the liquid through as quickly as possible, squeezing the remaining pulp as much as you can – but do be quick as the jelly sets if you take too long (if it does begin to set before you've had a chance to put it into the jar, just reheat it gently). Now pour the jelly into the sterilised jar (see below), cover with a waxed disc, cool and tie down.
To sterilise jars, wash the jars and lids in warm, soapy water, rinse well (again in warm water), then dry them thoroughly with a clean tea cloth, place them on a baking tray and pop them in a medium oven, gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C) for a minimum of 5 minutes. Add their contents while they are still hot.
BLACKBERRY PICKING
by
Seamus Heaney
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
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