Apple and Blackberry Crumble

To me nothing signals that autumn is near more than the start of blackberry season.  I had seen a few days ago, while walking the dog, that they had already started to be ready to pick.  I thought that it was a little early but I was excited about it nonetheless and the next time I took the dog for a walk I persuaded my sister to come and pick berries with me.  We had intended to just pick blackberries but came back with a rather a lot of sloes too which I'm sure I will talk about another time.  When I pick blackberries I always use them to make a blackberry and apple crumble and, since the apples on the tree in our garden were also ready to pick, I used only fruit which I had picked myself which made me feel very good about myself.

I never really use a recipe to make crumble, I just put things together until they look right, so it will be difficult to give an exact recipe for the crumble which I made but I can give a rough guide.

Ingredients:
2 Handfuls of freshly picked blackberries
2 Small apples
2 Tablespoons of brown sugar
Plain flour, enough to cover the fruit with
Butter, enough that when you rub it into the flour it makes breadcrumbs
Granulated sugar, a few tablespoons

Method:

• Heat the oven to gas mark 4 or 180 degrees celsius
• Wash the blackberries then peel and chop the apples
• Place the sliced apple on the bottom of a small, oven proof bowl and sprinkle with the brown sugar
• Put the blackberries on top of the slices of apple
• Pour the flour into a mixing bowl with the butter
• Rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs and then add the white sugar
• Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the fruit and shake the bowl so that it lays flat, do not press it down
• Put in the oven for about 40 minutes
• Serve hot with either cream or custard

I may have made slightly too much crumble mixture for the amount of fruit this time because I was using a smaller dish than I am used to but I still thought it was pretty good.