A Gluttony Of Blackberries

With the hedgerows and shops full of blackberries around at the moment I thought I would share with you some great recipes to make

Blackberry Brandy!!

 Ingredients

1 bottle of brandy
Enough blackberries to half fill a bottle
Cloves
Cinnamon to taste
90g sugar
1 bottle with a screw cap

Method
 Crush the blackberries lightly in a glass bowl. Half-fill the bottles with the crushed blackberries. Add the cinnamon, cloves and sugar then fill the bottle with brandy. Screw the cap on tightly and leave for 3-4 months. Shake the bottle every day for 2 weeks and then once a month afterwards. You now have the choice of straining your blackberry brandy into another bottle, or keeping the fruit in the bottle as a talking point.






Blackberry Crumble!

Just a quick note on this but I would add more sugar than they state as we found ours rather sharp and had to drown it in cream! IF you have any left over take a tub of soft ice cream and mix it little chunks of the crumble for a fantastic dessert later on in the week (put ice cream back in freezer after mixing lumps in!)

Ingredients

4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into big chunks
1 tbsp water
3 tbsp sugar
225 g fresh or frozen blackberries, or mixed berries
For the crumble:
170 g plain flour
75 g butter
75 g demerara sugar


Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.

Put the apple chunks, water and sugar into a saucepan over a lowish heat and cook until the apples are soft and mushy; this should take about 10 minutes. While cooking, stir it every minute or so to prevent sticking. Taste and add more sugar if it needs it.

Transfer the apple pulp into individual bowls or one big pie dish and allow to cool slightly. Stir the berries into the apples.

To make the crumble, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles very coarse breadcrumbs. However, if you rub it too much the crumble will not be crunchy. Combine with the sugar. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the slightly cooled apple and bake for 15 mins for small crumbles or 30-45 mins for larger crumbles. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Comments

  1. Yum! The hedges near us are full of blackberries so I'm definitely going to be out collecting some once they're a bit riper. Love the idea of putting crumble into ice cream!

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