Blackberry and Apple Crumble

The hedgerows around where we live are heavy with sweet, ripe delicious blackberries due to this lovely warm Autumn weather we’ve been having. I have been waiting to make this crumble, using our own apples and freshly picked berries (remember, blackberries don’t keep!). Serve with Greek yoghurt or soya custard for a real treat.

Ingredients

• 4 medium size apples (mine are eaters so don’t need too much added sugar)

• 2 cups of blackberries

• 100g wholegrain spelt flour

• 100g walnuts

• 100g jumbo oats

• 100g butter or coconut oil

• 75g coconut palm sugar

• 2 tbsp maple syrup

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat the oven to gas 6/200C/400F

Oil a flan dish approx 26cm diameter.

Chop the apples into small pieces, no need to peel unless you are using cooking apples.

Scatter the apples into the dish and add the blackberries.

Pour on the maple syrup and 2 tbsp water.

In a food processor place the flour, nuts, sugar, oats, cinnamon and vanilla. Add the butter in cubes or coconut oil in spoonfuls and process till everything is crumbly and coming together in small clumps. If you have a Thermomix pulse on turbo for 3 pulses of 3 seconds each.

Scatter the crumble mix over the fruit.You might have some left over, enough to make a smaller crumble another day, the mix freezes well.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes or until the fruit is bubling through the crumble and the crumble is nicely browned.

Nutritional info

Blackberries freshly picked are just exploding with vitamin C and antioxidants and their little seeds provide great fibre. Apples contain fibre, vitamin C and pectin which helps to bind toxins in the gut for removal from the body. Walnuts provide protein and omega 3 oils, oats are a slow releasing carbohydrate to help keep you fuller for longer  and although spelt flour is a member of the wheat family it contains less gluten.