Late Summer Harvest - apples and blackberries

While shifting sheep in the weekend I jumped out to open a gate, looked left and realised..... bonanza it's blackberry season. This year the blackberries are unlike anything I've seen, an absolute bumper crop (much to my husbands disgust).

With kiddie helpers we quickly picked an ice cream container from the river bed and I got to work on dreaming up some recipes. It's also the time of year the apples are just starting to ripen, I'm lucky enough to have some ancient heritage cooking apples that are terrible eating but cook up beautifully - provided I get to them before the hens do!

Check out your own roadsides, I'm sure you won't have to go far to find a blackberry crop of your own, here's some inspiration

Recipe - Apple, Blackberry and Hazelnut crumble cake

I've found a tasty apple crumble cake recipe and tweaked it slightly, adding in a handful of hazelnuts we harvested a few weeks ago. The cake is surprisingly light and given it's mostly apple it has to be good for you!

Cream 125g butter and 125g caster sugar until light and fluffy

One at a time add 3 eggs

Then fold in 1/2 cup of ground almonds, 3/4 cup flour and 1t baking powder.

Peel 2-3 apples and slice into 1-2cm cubes, mix these plus 1 cup of blackberries through the batter.

Turn out into a 22 (ish) cm springform tin that's been well greased and preferably lined, cover with crumble topping and bake for 40-50 minutes at 150-160 degrees 

Crumble topping - easiest to toss it all in a blender if you've got one, otherwise rub together with your fingers, 1/2 cup rolled oats, 2T brown sugar, 2T roughy chopped toasted hazelnuts, 2-3T butter

Need more inspiration...

While we're on the subject of crumbles I thought I would include our all time family favourite recipe, absolutely the very best fruit crumble topping I've ever tasted - full credit goes to my late mother in law.

Apple and blackberry crumble is definitely on the list this week! Just stew the apples, throw over some blackberries and cover with crumble. Bake at 180 degrees for approx 20-30 minutes till golden and bubbling

Jo's Crumble Recipe

In a blender whiz together 1.5 cups of rolled oats, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1t cinnamon and 50-70g of butter cut into cubes. That's it! 

I always add 2/3rds of the butter at the start then dollop in cubes one at a time through the spout until the topping starts to stick together.

I'm told my crumble topping is not quite how his mother used to make it... but apparently it still passes the test! Enjoy - it's one we certainly do x