An Autumn Ritual Worth Keeping

There is a fortnight in early autumn when everything in the British countryside seems to ripen at once. The blackberries darken along the lane, the first proper gales shake the apples off the tree at the bottom of the garden, and the kitchen starts to smell of cinnamon and warm sugar. A crumble is the simplest answer to that glut. It takes less than an hour, it forgives rough handling and imperfect fruit, and it turns a bucket of half-bruised apples into something you would happily serve at a Sunday table.

Better still, the whole thing can be gathered rather than bought. Apples that would otherwise rot under the tree and blackberries pulled from a hedgerow make a pudding that costs almost nothing and tastes of the season it came from.

Picking Blackberries from the Hedgerow

Blackberry season generally runs from late August through to the first hard frosts of October, and the best fruit is rarely at eye level on the sunny side of the hedge. Look for berries that are almost black, slightly dull rather than glossy, and that drop into your hand with barely a tug. If it resists, it is not ripe; if it is red or purple, leave it where it is.

• Pick waist-height and above, away from busy roads and field margins that may have been sprayed.
• Use a shallow tub or a wide basket rather than a bag, which crushes fruit into jam before you get home.
• Wear long sleeves and gloves — brambles are called brambles for good reason.
• Leave at least half the berries on each bush for the birds, and never strip a hedge bare.
• Soak your haul in cold water with a pinch of salt for ten minutes, then drain and pat dry. Any small residents will float off.

If the season is generous, freeze the surplus in a single layer on a tray, then bag them up. They bake beautifully straight from frozen.

Windfall Apples: Free Fruit with a Few Rules

Windfalls are a gift, but they need a bit of judgement. Use them within a day or two of gathering and discard anything that is mouldy, leaking, or smells fermented — the risk is not worth the saving. Cut out bruises, cores and soft brown patches generously, and never take fruit from orchards where livestock graze, or from private land without asking.

Cooking apples such as Bramleys collapse into a soft, tangy fluff that is perfect for crumble. Eaters hold their shape and need less sugar. A mixture gives you the best of both: some texture, some sharpness.

The Topping: Oats, Hazelnuts and Demerara

The crumble topping is where this pudding earns its keep, and the ratio matters more than the technique. Weigh out 100g plain flour and 75g cold butter, cut into cubes. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, stopping while there are still a few pea-sized lumps — those give you the crunchy, uneven surface you want. Stir through 50g porridge oats, 50g hazelnuts roughly chopped and lightly toasted, and 75g demerara sugar. Add a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

If you keep a bag of cobnuts in the freezer from a September walk, use them in place of the hazelnuts. Toasting them for ten minutes in a moderate oven loosens the papery skins and deepens the flavour considerably.

Building and Baking the Crumble

• 1kg prepared apples, peeled, cored and cut into 2cm chunks
• 300g blackberries
• 2 tablespoons demerara sugar, plus extra for the top
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• Zest and juice of half a lemon
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and a grating of nutmeg

Toss the apples with the sugar, cornflour, lemon and spices. Tip them into a buttered 1.5 litre ovenproof dish — the fruit should come about two-thirds of the way up the sides, so adjust the dish rather than squashing it in. Scatter the blackberries over the top and press them in lightly; too much stirring turns the whole thing an alarming shade of purple. Spoon the topping over in a loose, lumpy layer and press it down gently in a few places, then sprinkle with a little extra demerara.

Bake at 180°C fan, 200°C conventional, gas mark 6 for 35 to 45 minutes, until the juices bubble thickly at the edges and the top is deeply golden. If it is browning too fast, cover loosely with foil. Let it stand for ten minutes before serving — the filling needs to settle, and you will not burn your tongue on molten blackberry juice.

Serving, Keeping and Small Variations

Custard is the traditional companion, though cold double cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream runs it close. Leftovers keep covered in the fridge for three days and reheat well in a moderate oven; the topping softens, but nobody complains.

An unbaked crumble freezes beautifully. Assemble it in a freezer-proof dish, wrap well, and bake from frozen, adding fifteen to twenty minutes to the cooking time. Swap a third of the apples for pears, damsons or plums as the season turns, change the hazelnuts for flaked almonds, or add a handful of porridge oats to the fruit to soak up a particularly juicy crop. Once you have made it a few times, you will stop measuring altogether — which is exactly how a good autumn pudding should be.