Apple and blackberry slice

It feels like autumn today - windy, grey and cold. So to celebrate I made apple and blackberry slice to use (a) some of the blackberry mountain from the allotment and (b) the leftover filo pastry from the courgette/chickpea pie experiment.

It went down rather well, with a scoop of blackberry ripple ice cream.

You'll need:

4 or 5 eating apples - peeled, cored and chopped into chunks
a small punnet of blackberries
125 filo pastry
a jolly good squirt of runny honey
a sprinkle of cinammon
15g butter, melted

First of all, stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C.

Sling the apple chunks into a small saucepan with a little water (maybe half a mug). Bring to the boil, then simmer until the apple has turned to a beautiful mush.

Take a small foil tray or whatever cake or loaf tin comes to hand. Brush all over with melted butter, and line with 4 or 5 sheets of filo pastry (each brushed with melted butter), leaving a little overlap hanging over the edge.

Place the blackberries on the pastry, and top with the apple mush. Drizzle over a good squirt of runny honey, and sprinkle with cinnamon. Fold over the overhanging edges of pastry, and then place a couple more sheets of filo on top (brushing with more melted butter).

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.

Blackberry muffins

The blackberries at the allotment just seem to be getting bigger and bigger - it must be all the rain. The monsters need eating, so we made muffins this afternoon - you were brilliant at all the cracking eggs and mixing.

Makes 12 small cupcake-sized muffins. You'll need:

200g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
85g sugar
a pinch of salt
40g butter, melted
140ml milk
1 egg, beaten
three or four blackberries per muffin

Stick the oven on at 200 degrees C, and dig out a cupcake tin. I lined mine with silicon cases, but the paper ones will do just fine.

Sling all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, and mix well. Pour the milk, melted butter and egg into a measuring jug, mix together, and dump into the muffin mix. Stir until everything's combined together (it'll be a stiff-ish mixture).

Drop three or four blackberries (depending on how large they are) into each paper/silicon case. Spoon the muffin mixture on top.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until the tops have gone golden brown. Decant the muffins (still in the cases) onto a wire rack to cool.

They're delicious with a dab of creme fraiche, but to be honest are best scoffed immediately with a cup of tea.

Blackberry ripple ice cream

We've now got four tubs of ice cream in the freezer, which may be overkill. This one's mine and your Dad's favourite - made with some huge, squishy blackberries from the allotment.

You'll need:

350g blackberries
50ml apple juice
200g sweetened condensed milk (don't laugh...)
300ml double cream
50g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

First of all, you need to make a blackberry syrup. Stick your blackberries in a large saucepan, together with 50ml apple juice. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the sugar, and stir until it's dissolved. Bring to the boil again, and simmer for another 5 minutes, so the blackberry mush turns syrupy.

Pour the blackberries in a blender (or use one of those handheld things - even easier to shove in the dishwasher afterwards), and whizz round for a minute or so. Pour the resulting blackberry puree through a sieve, to get rid of the seeds, and then leave to cool.

While you're waiting for things to cool down, whip the cream until it stands in soft peaks. Add the vanilla and condensed milk (if it's good enough for Pooh...), and fold through. Pour into a freezerproof container - and then comes the fun bit - drizzle over the blackberry sauce for a ripple effect. Fold it loosely into the cream mixture, and then stick the whole lot in the freezer. You don't need to stir it, but leave the ice cream for at least 3-4 hours before you eat it, preferably in a sugar cone with a dark chocolate lining...

Gruffalo crumble

We spent the morning in Chopwell woods, searching for brambles. The gruffalos had eaten most of them, but we managed a respectable lunchbox-full, despite being bombarded with shards of nuts from two squirrels who were nibbling away at the very top of a large oak tree.

For a small crumble for three you'll need:

a couple of apples (cooking apples would be best, but I only had dessert ones in the fruit bowl)
some brambles (a small lunchbox full)
a couple of tablespoons of granular sugar
2oz plain flour
a teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 oz butter
3/4 oz sugar

Peel, core and chop the apples, and stick at the bottom of a baking dish. Wash the brambles, and mix with the apples. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of sugar over the top.

To make the topping, rub the butter into the flour, and then stir in the sugar and cinnamon. Tip over the top of the apple/blackberry mixture. If you're really feeling fancy, you could add some flaked almonds on top.

Bake at 180 degrees C for half an hour or so - until the fruit is soft and the top is crispy and brown. Just watch out the gruffalos don't eat it all.