Blackberry recipes compiled

On August 31st we are sipping Pimms in the garden and planning BBQs, but on the stroke of midnight, September dawns and mince pies appear instantly on supermarket shelves. We seem to skip straight from summer to Christmas, missing out the fabulous season of autumn. Pumpkin pies, conkers, dewy cobwebs, fresh mornings, gingerbread, cinder toffee! #dontskipautumn campaign starts here! Picking blackberries is one of the joys of early autumn. What’s not to love about free food? (ok, the nettle stings and bramble scratches, but it’s worth it). Once you’ve picked the berries, give them a good wash, and then you can portion them out and freeze them, or use them straight away in one of these recipes.

Many raspberry recipes work well with blackberries too, and they go well with milk chocolate or apples. So instead of raspberry and white chocolate muffins, you could do blackberry and milk chocolate.

A classic choice is apple and blackberry crumble. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/crunchyappleandblack_7679

You could also do a cobbler: https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/blackberry-and-apple-cobbler/

Or a pie. You could mix with blackcurrants. https://www.everynookandcranny.net/blackcurrant-plate-pie/

Hot blackberry sponge: https://susiesrecipes.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/jamie-olivers-spotted-blackberry-sponge/ (you could make individual ones, as steamed sponge puddings)

This raspberry bake works just as well with blackberries: Raspberry TrayBakewell

This take on a bread and butter pudding is easy and delicious: Blackberry and chocolate brioche pudding

An easy traybake: Blackberry crumble bars

If you don’t want to make jam (https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/blackberry-jam), you could do a chutney: 62. and 63. Apple and blackberry chutney, and Chocolate fudge

Swap out the blueberries for blackberries in pancakes: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/american-blueberry-pancakes

Blackberry crumble bars

Why choose between shortbread, crumble, tart, or cake? With this bake you can have them all. The base and the crumble are actually just the same recipe (shortbread) so this is really simple. I used a food processor, but you can just as easily do it by hand. Serve cold as a snack with a cuppa, or warm with cream as a pudding.

(If you’re not good at separating eggs, you could double the recipe and just use a whole egg, or you could take one egg, beat it all together, then just use half of that.)

Ingredients:

225g plain flour
150g butter, cubed
100g caster sugar
1 egg yolk

200g blackberries
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
a squeeze of lemon juice (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a brownie tin with non-stick baking paper.
2. In a food processor, pulse together the flour, butter, sugar until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (you can do this by hand, by rubbing in the butter). Then mix in the egg yolk. At this point you mixture may still be crumbly – this is fine.
3. Divide the mixture into thirds. Keep one third to one side, and tip two thirds into the baking tin and press down until it’s a smooth base layer of shortbread.
4. In a bowl, toss the blackberries with the sugar, cornflour and lemon juice. Then scatter this mixture over the base in the baking tin.
5. Crumble the remaining shortbread mixture over the top of the berries. Bake for about 30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool and cut into 16 squares.

Throwback: Raspberry TrayBakewell

Blackberry and chocolate brioche pudding

They say the juiciest berries are always just out of reach, but that’s a good thing when it comes to blackberry picking because they’re also probably out of reach of a weeing dog. I thought this was a well known proverb like “the grass is always greener”, but Mr Cookingfanatic thought I’d made it up. I eventually worked out I must have read it somewhere and it comes from the Greek myth of Tantalus (from where we get the word “tantalising”) who was condemned to spend eternity beneath a fruit tree where the fruit always receded from his grasp. Well ain’t that a word in season for our consumerist culture? All this is to say: rinse those blackberries folks!

This is a very forgiving recipe, a chuck-it-all-in wonder. And you could make lots of variations which I’ll mention below. It’s based on a bread and butter pudding, and is best served warm with extra cream.

Ingredients

8 choc chip brioche rolls
100g choc chips (optional)
200g blackberries (fresh or frozen)
300 ml double cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp plain flour
3 eggs
Icing sugar
Extra cream to serve

1. Grease an oven-proof dish. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Tear the brioche rolls roughly and place in the greased dish. Scatter over the choc chips and the blackberries.
3. In a jug, whisk together the 300ml double cream, caster sugar, flour, and eggs. Pour this mixture over the brioche and leave to soak for about 20 minutes.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Sieve over some icing sugar and serve with extra cream.

Swaps:
You could make the same pudding with raspberries (use white choc chips), stewed apples, or stoned cherries.
You could use plain brioche, or croissants, or panettone.
Mincemeat and panettone would be a good Christmas version
You could stir Nutella into the cream mixture to make a chocolatey custard version.

Let me know in the comments what version you might make!

Throwback: Afternoon tea cake – for when you’re wishing it was still summer!

62. and 63. Apple and blackberry chutney, and Chocolate fudge

Home Cooking Made Easy p222 and 226

I think everybody’s getting edible gifts this year, as I try to race through my recipes before New Year. So I made this chutney and fudge as a birthday present. Edible gifts are always well-received though I’ve found!