Hello! Apologies for the lack of posts this week but I haven’t had much free time nor been at home. We are going through a pretty tough time family-wise at the moment so I have been staying with my parents for a couple of nights this week. I will probably write more about this at some point in the future but for now…onto today’s recipe!
I cannot get enough crumble at the moment and this recipe was so good I made it twice in one week, the first time with figs and blackberries and the second time with apples, blackberries and sultanas. I may even have had three bowls of crumble in one day but we won’t dwell on that!
Ian and I picked these blackberries from the country lanes near our house last Sunday and I think the fact that we foraged these ourselves made me enjoy this pudding even more!
As I was preparing to make a plain old blackberry crumble, I noticed that I also had a few very ripe figs sat in the fruit bowl and a lovely quote by Nigel Slater came to mind where he said that if nature delivers things at the same time then we should take the hint and use them together! I love this idea and if you think about the time of year that various fruit and vegetables are at their best then you will find that a lot of the produce will usually go very well together in a dish.
I experimented a bit with this topping too by adding some ground almonds and also some desiccated coconut for a nuttier taste. These added a lovely flavour and texture but if you prefer to keep it plain and classic then just stick to butter, sugar and flour.
Ingredients
For the filling:
About 350g of fresh blackberries
4 figs, quartered
50g of caster sugar
For the crumble:
120g of butter, cubed
150g of plain flour
30g of ground almonds
30g of desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
120g of light muscovado sugar
How to make it
- Preheat your oven to 180°C, Gas Mark 4
- Place the blackberries and figs in a large ovenproof dish and sprinkle over the caster sugar. I found 50g was the perfect amount to sweeten up the blackberries without it being too sickly
- In a mixing bowl, rub together the butter and flour until they are the consistency of breadcrumbs
- Add the ground almonds, desiccated coconut, cinnamon and muscovado sugar and mix well
- Sprinkle the crumble topping over the fruit and lightly pat down
- Add a final sprinkle of sugar and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the topping is golden brown
- Serve warm with cream, ice-cream, custard or all three!
I used the same method to make my blackberry, apple and sultana crumble but omitted the ground almonds and desiccated coconut and instead used 200g of plain flour.
hannahhotcakes 