A bumper crop this year and I picked a lot in a couple of hours with the thought of making wild blackberry and apple crumble. The humble blackberry is a powerhouse of positive chemicals, lashings of vitamin C when fresh, fibre, folate, bioflavonoids and useful carbohydrates. Blackberry has astringent, antifungal, antiseptic and tonic properties and the leaves of this most useful plant also reveal a load of useful constituents used for diarrhoea, mouth inflammation, skin ulcers and wounds.

I started by collecting the recipe ingredients including pounds of blackberries. Everyone develops their own way of picking, but I enjoy eating only the ‘perfect’ blackberries straight from the stem. If they are too sour or seedy, I spit the remains out into a patch of soil nearby that is clear from blackberries – hence fulfilling my part in the reason for their existence – that of seed dispersal. I got ‘first pick’ of these blackberries and this time of year (beginning of September) they were tender and the seeds not too woody.
I purchased five huge Bramley apples, sugar, lemon and spices (cloves and cinnamon) – also custard. It was clear I had too many blackberries so I would also make some blackberry tea, blackberry junket and blackberry and apple jam. I started with the junket. Simply mash the ripe berries with a potato masher and give them a good working over with a wooden spoon to free the liquid constituents. Then strain through layers of muslin or similar material and leave it untouched in a bowl, in a warm / darkish place without any additives whatsoever. In a few hours this rich, dark liquid solidifies into a kind of jelly. This stuff is nothing less than a wonder of nature; you can feel it doing good as you eat it. You can actually taste the vitamin C. Put it on ice-cream, eat it with biscuits and cheese, down it neat, freeze it into ice cubes for later, add it to wine, pour boiling water on it for tea, then go and get some more!
Onto the crumble – a classic autumn dish in the UK. Peel, core and slice the apples – I usually cut them into eighths. Squeeze some lemon juice over them as this helps to stop the apples browning. Drop in a few cloves and a touch of cinnamon; they just have a natural affinity with apples. Put the smallest amount of water in the pan and turn up to a medium heat, simmer until the apples start fluffing and breaking down a bit. This should give you just enough time to sort through the blackberries ejecting any stems or ‘wooden’ bits or spoiled fruit. Then pile them into the pan, lifting gently from underneath with a wooden spoon to stir them in, this avoids breaking the fruit up too much. Let them cook for just a couple of minutes and then add a pile of sugar (depending on the ‘tartness’ of the fruit and your personal preferences with sugar). Although generally I try to avoid processed white sugar, it seems to interfere least with the tastes of the fruit.
Stir it in gently until the sugar dissolves and take it off the heat. For a crumble mix add a generous knob of butter to some oats and hand squeeze it in. You can add a little flour to this mix, certainly some cinnamon to give it a nutty flavour – or even some roast almonds, and a touch more sugar. You want to get the texture of this crumble still just ‘open’ rather than a greasy lump!
Then select your bowls and spoon in the fruit mix to about two thirds full. Top it up, just short of the rim, as the fruit will bubble out in the oven otherwise. I like to ‘burnish’ the crumble down flat with the back of a spoon to minimise leakage and get a slight crust. Put into a moderate oven for 30 – 45 minutes depending on the size. After a while make the custard and serve – it’s also delicious with ice cream. Wild blackberry crumble is one of the best ways I know to celebrate the abundance of nature, so make sure to invite some friends around for your own harvest supper.
If you have some blackberry mix left over, put it into sterilised jars where it will keep for a couple of weeks for another crumble. Or thicken it up with some pectin, and maybe a bit more sugar and this crumble fruit mix is delicious on toast as a jam.