The Glorious Blackberry

The eagle eyed amongst you will realise that this is not Wren's Seasonal Recipes and I am not Wren! She is away with her lovely rescue dog, Blue, at the moment, so I am stepping into the breach...

This year is definitely a bumper year for blackberries. The lanes around our cottage are lined with blackberry bushes laden with very large, juicy fruits. So, never ones to turn down free food, we have been trying to use them in every way we can. My favourite is this bramble jelly, adapted from a Mrs Beeton recipe.

Bramble Jelly

800g blackberries (picked straight from the bush will taste the best)
¼ pint of water
2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
sugar (300g per pint of juice)
1 lemon

Gently wash the blackberries and put in a saucepan with the water and apples. Cover and bring to the boil, then simmer gently until the blackberries have just started to turn to mush. Drain through a muslin bag, being careful not to squeeze the bag or it will cloud the jelly. We didn't have a muslin bag so improvised with an old (but clean!) popsock tied to the handle of a kitchen cupboard and suspended above the bowl. Leave overnight or until it has stopped dripping. Then measure the juice and return to the pan with 300g of sugar per pint of juice. Bring to the boil and simmer until it has reached setting point. The organised amongst you will have a jam thermometer but if you are a jelly-making virgin like me, you probably won't. An easy way to see if the jelly is at setting point is to spoon a little onto a plate and if after 30 seconds it has formed a film, it is set. If it hasn't, keep simmering for a further few minutes. Then pour your jelly into sterilised jars and put the lid on immediately.

We ate some of ours the next day... it was incredibly good and as well as being used on toast and in sandwiches, it adds a wonderful flavour to gravy and the kids also love it on ice-cream. I intend to package some beautifully and give it as Christmas presents.

But once your cupboards are groaning under the weight of all your bramble jelly... what then? This is a wonderfully easy and adaptable recipe.

Blackberry Crumble

Basic crumble mixture:

100g sugar
100g butter (or margarine)
75g wholemeal flour
75g rolled oats

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and, using your fingertips, rub together until it looks like breadcrumbs.

For a basic blackberry crumble, simply put the blackberries (approx 200g for this amount of crumble mixture) straight into the baking dish and sprinkle the crumble mixture on top. You can easily increase or decrease the amounts used if needed. Or if, like me, you love crumble make twice as much mixture!

Variations
Blackberries go extremely well with apples or pears. Briefly cook the apples or pears in a little water beforehand and then place in the bottom of the baking dish, sprinkling the blackberries over the top before adding the crumble mixture.

Variations to the crumble mixture
A very good friend of mine freezes the last bits of muesli at the bottom of the box to add to the crumble topping.

If pears are involved, broken up ginger biscuits can replace some or all of the oats.
Cinnamon can be added to the apple and blackberry crumble mixture.

And when the situation calls for a slightly more glamorous pud...

Blackberry Fool

80g blackberries
80g icing sugar, sieved
200ml double cream, whipped

Cook the blackberries in a little water until mushy, then strain (as in the bramble jelly recipe). Allow to cool. Meanwhile whip the cream and stir in the sieved icing sugar. Stir in the cooled blackberry juice and serve in glasses with either a trickle of juice or a blackberry perched jauntily on the top!

Jo

photos (c) Gary Barlow 2009