Blackberry smoothie lollies

My daughter made these and it took at least 4 hours for the lollies to freeze. If you want to use less blackberries and/or have smaller lolly moulds use 100g blackberries and 100ml apple juice

You will need…

200g blackberries
1 ripe banana

200ml apple juice (I had to use my juicer as we didn’t have any apple juice in 1 apple produces about 100ml apple juice)

How to…

Just whizz them up in your food processor or handheld blender

 

This gave us enough for 4 large smoothie lollies and left some over for us to drink as mini-smoothies.

 

I think our lollies took about 4-6 hours to freeze.

Blackberry compote

Try making this by just stewing the fruit in a little water for about 5 minutes.

I used about 300g of fruit. Take about a third to a half of the fruit out and blend it a little and then add back in.

Or mash it if you don’t have a blender.

Try it and if it’s sweet enough then keep it as it is.

But if it needs a little sweetening then add a tablespoonful or two of maple syrup.

I had mine with greek yogurt and home made granola which was very moreish.

It’s yummy with home made pancakes and also as a pudding with yogurt or ice-cream.

You can freeze what you don’t need in ice cube trays.

Blackberry and Bramley spelt crumble

Blackberries are quite sweet which is why this works really well with Bramley (cooking apples) because of their tartness.

This is an updated version of a crumble recipe I posted a couple of years ago. I bake the crumble mixture separately to the fruit mixture because I like to keep the crumble mixture dry.

You will need….

…for the crumble

200g spelt flour
40g hazelnuts
30g oats
70g brown sugar
100g unsalted butter cut into cubes

… for the filling

200g blackberries
2 medium sized bramley apples
Juice of half a lemon
2-3 tablespoons of maple syrup or brown sugar

How to…

First pre-heat oven to 190˚C (170˚C fan oven) / gas mark 5 / 375˚F.

If you have a food processor whizz all the crumble ingredients together until they resemble coarse breadcrumbs.

It’s easy enough to do by hand and doesn’t take long.

In a bowl, rub together flour, sugar and butter with fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Shake the bowl to get big lumps to the top and rub these in to get an even texture.

Chop the nuts so they are in quarters or smaller. Or you could make an envelope with parchment paper and put the nuts in the middle, fold it over at the edges and then bash the nuts with a rolling pin. Letting out any pent up aggression from the day!

Mix in the oats and chopped nuts.

Put on a big baking tray.

Wash the blackberries through well, checking for any signs of life.

Wash, peel, core and cut the apple into cubes and put in an ovenproof dish .

Cover and mix through the lemon juice to stop the apples from going brown.

Spoon over and mix through the maple syrup.

Cover with foil or lid.

Put the apple mixture and the baking tray of crumble in the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Take the crumble out and mix through and put back in so it is all evenly browned.

Take the apple mixture out of the oven, add the blackberries, mix well and put back in.

Bake for a further 10-15 minutes.

Take out of the oven and serve with ice cream or home-made custard.