Baking a Rustic Apple and Blackberry Crumble

The Last of the Summer Hedgerows

There is a particular fortnight at the end of August and the beginning of September when the countryside seems to hold its breath. The wheat has gone, the leaves are still green but tired, and the hedgerows are heavy with blackberries. If you live anywhere near a lane, a towpath or a scrappy bit of wasteland, you will already have noticed them — dark, dusty and hanging in tangles just above the nettles.

Blackberries are the easiest wild harvest there is, which is precisely why so many of us ignore them. But a punnet from the supermarket has nothing on fruit picked warm from the sun, and the small, seedy, slightly sharp ones that grow in the shade are often the best of all for cooking. Take a walking stick to hook down the high branches, wear long sleeves, and pick only the berries that come away without a tug — anything that resists is not ready.

Bring them home with a bag of firm orchard apples and you have, to my mind, the finest pudding in the British repertoire.

Choosing Your Apples

The success of a crumble depends on the fruit not collapsing into a purée. You want apples that hold their shape and bring some acidity to balance the sugar. Bramleys are the classic and my first choice, but a mixture is even better: a couple of Bramleys for sharpness, plus a handful of Coxes, russets or Egremont Russets for flavour and a little texture.

Avoid anything floury or over-ripe. Windfalls are fine for sauce, but for a crumble they will give you a soggy base and a filling that tastes of nothing much.

What You Will Need

This makes enough for six generous portions in a dish roughly 24cm by 18cm, or a two-litre ovenproof dish of any shape. A deep pie dish works beautifully.

• 600g firm apples, peeled, cored and cut into thick slices
• 400g blackberries, picked over and any leaves removed
• 80–100g caster sugar, depending on how sharp your fruit is
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 heaped teaspoon cornflour
• A good pinch of ground cinnamon, or a few gratings of nutmeg
• 200g plain flour
• 100g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for the dish
• 75g demerara sugar
• 60g porridge oats
• 40g ground almonds (optional, but it keeps the topping tender)
• A pinch of fine sea salt

Serve with proper custard, clotted cream or vanilla ice cream. Custard, ideally, and plenty of it.

Building the Filling

Heat the oven to 180°C fan, 200°C conventional, gas mark 6. Butter your dish generously, right into the corners.

Toss the apple slices in a bowl with the caster sugar, lemon juice, cornflour and spice. The cornflour is doing quiet, important work here — it thickens the juices so you get a glossy, clinging syrup rather than a puddle of thin liquid under the crumble.

Tip the apples into the dish and spread them level, then scatter the blackberries over the top. Do not stir them through. Keeping the berries on the upper layer means they stay whole and burst only as the pudding bakes, staining the apples purple in patches. It looks, and tastes, far better than an evenly mixed, uniform mush.

Rubbing In, and the Trick of the Oats

Put the flour, salt and butter in a large, cold bowl. Rub the butter in with your fingertips, lifting and crumbling, until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Work quickly and lightly — warm hands make heavy crumble. If the butter starts to soften, put the bowl in the fridge for ten minutes and carry on.

Stir through the demerara sugar, oats and ground almonds. The oats are what turn a polite crumble into something properly rustic: they give chew and crunch, and they stay crisp for longer. The demerara brings a faint toffee note that ordinary sugar lacks. Do not be tempted to rub the oats in with the flour; they should remain visible flakes.

Squeeze a handful of the mixture in your fist. If it holds together in a rough clump, you have it right. If it falls apart, add another knob of butter, rubbed in.

Assembling and Baking

Scatter the crumble over the fruit in an even layer. Don't press it down — loose, uneven peaks are where the best crunchy bits form. Leave a few small gaps for steam to escape.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the topping is deep gold and the juices are bubbling up around the edges. If it is browning too quickly, lay a sheet of foil loosely over the top for the last ten minutes.

Let it stand for ten minutes before serving. This is not a suggestion; it is the difference between a spoonful of fruit and a scalded mouth.

Any leftovers will keep, covered, in the fridge for two days. Reheat in a moderate oven rather than the microwave — the topping will come back to life. And on a bleak February evening, when the freezer yields up a bag of last September's blackberries, you will be very glad you picked more than you needed.