blackberries, crumbled and plucked

I was faffing around on Saturday trying to convince myself to get my act together enough to Make The Apple Pie, and mumbled, “Or maybe I could just make a blackberry apple crumble, that’d be easier,” in the vicinity of our guest, who said, “I didn’t know that was an option!!!”, thus indicating I should do that. :)

I poked around the internet and couldn’t find a recipe I really liked, so I kind of invented one. It went like this:

Kit’s Blackberry-Apple Crumble
1 oz butter
1 oz sugar
4-5 green apples, peeled, cored & sliced into 36ths
3.5 c blackberries
a smallish handful of flour

Caramelize the butter & sugar, pour the sliced apples in, stir for a couple minutes, pour the blackberries in, stir, pour the whole thing into a 9x11ish pan and sprinkle the flour over the top.

The Topping
1 c flour
3/4 c white sugar
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 oz butter

Whisk/stir/whatever first 4 ingredients together. Cut in butter until it’s pea-sized or so. Spread on top of the crumble. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the top is golden-brown & the fruit tender. Let sit for about 30 minutes. Eat with ice cream.

I didn’t have a 9×11 pan, only a 9×13 and a 9×9, the latter of which turned the crumble topping to butter (tasty butter, but not crispy butter) LAST time I made it, so I used the bigger one and the filling was a bit thin, so neither was really suitable. Next time I’ll make more filling, maybe. But it was really good. And also we ate it and I didn’t take a picture. :)

But then I’d used all the blackberries, woe! So this weekend I went out and chopped down a lot of nettles and brambles and made my way back to where More Blackberries Lurked, and this morning I went and picked another half kilo of them. If I hadn’t made the crumble I’d now have enough for more jam, but, well. It was really good crumble. :) So now I’m back to hoping the weather holds long enough for the rest of the red berries to ripen!

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