Homemade Apple and Blackberry Crumble

Hi everyone,

The nights are starting to draw in, the leaves on the trees are turning golden and there's a bit of a nip in the air.

So I thought it's the perfect time to share with you my recipe for apple and blackberry crumble, it's really easy and doesn't take long to prepare.

Ingredients

Filling

- 5 Medium Cooking Apples

- 2 Punnets of Blackberries

- 1/8 Teaspoon of Cinnamon

- 4 Tablespoons of Granulated Sugar

- 2 Tablespoons of Water

Topping

- 300g Plain Flour

- 200g Butter, cold and cut into cubes

- 175g Demerara Sugar

- 1/8 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Method

Start by peeling, coring and dicing your apples, I cut mine into about 1 inch cubes.

Place them in a sauce pan with the sugar, cinnamon and water.

Cook the apples on a medium/low heat for about 10 minutes, giving them an occasional stir, until the are soft but not totally mushy. Turn the heat off.

 Next give your blackberries a wash and stir them into the apple mixture. Leave the mixture to cool a little while you start to make the topping.

To make the topping, add the butter to the flour and rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles rough breacrumbs.

Then add your sugar and cinnamon to the 'breadcrumb' mixture and give it a good stir to combine.

 Pile your fruit mixture into a dish, I used a large rectangular pyrex dish. Then spread your fruit around so it's in an even layer.

Then sprinkle all the topping mixture over the fruit, make sure not to press the mixture down!

 Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celcius for 45mins - 1 hour until the top is golden brown and the fruit mixture is bubbling. And you should be rewarded with something that looks like the picture above.

 

 

Serve up with cream, custard or vanilla ice cream!

 

Now you have the perfect excuse to go blackberrying and cook something yummy with your berries!

 

Thanks for reading,

Jess

xxx

Tasty Tuesday - Strawberry Pavlova

Hi everyone,

This is an easy recipe for a yummy fruity summer treat.

Pavlova is a simple combination of a meringue base, whipped cream and fresh fruit.

To make my pavlova a little different I made a fruit coulis and folded some into the whipped cream and drizzled some on the top.

Ingredients

For the Meringue

- 4 Egg Whites

- 250g Caster Sugar

- 2 Teaspoons Malt Vinegar

- 2 Tablespoons Cornflour

- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

For the Coulis

- 150g Frozen Mixed Berries

- Icing Sugar, to taste(About a couple of tablespoons)

For the Top

- 300ml Whipping Cream, whipped

- Punnet of Strawberries

Method

- Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

- Then add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time until the mixture is very stiff.

- Whisk in the vinegar, cornflour and vanilla. 

- Line a baking sheet with silicone paper.

- Pile the meringue mixture into the centre and spread into a 23cm(9 inch) circle(roughly!).

- Hollow out a small dip in the centre of the meringue.

- Bake in an oven that's preheated to 150 degrees. 

- Bake for 1 1/2 hours.

- Once cooked leave to cool completely.

- While the meringue is baking/cooling, make the fruit coulis.

- Using a stick blender, blitz the fruit into a sauce. (I put my fruit in a large pyrex jug while blending)

- Put a metal sieve over a bowl and push the fruit sauce through to get rid of the seeds.

- Stir the icing sugar into the sieved sauce, taste to check if it's sweet enough.

- Once the meringue is cool, fold half of the sauce through the whipped cream. 

- Pile the cream onto the meringue.

- Decorate the top with halved strawberries and drizzle with the remaining coulis.

- I then added edible glitter, but you don't have to :D

Thanks for reading,
Jess
xxx