Autumn Cooking #1 - Pear and Blackberry crumble tray bake

Not only do I love Autumn make up , I absolutely love Autumn cooking - I love the way you can whip something up which can warm and comfort the soul(cheesy !.)  With this I thought I'd do 4 weekly posts which feature some of my favourite dishes. 

First up Blackberries , now I personally think at this time of the year you may as well pick you're own ( look below for my top tips for blackberry picking) 

The berries at the front are frozen NOT mouldy haha 

What you will need : 

• 25g S-R flour
• 25g unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 tsp ground almonds 

For the sponge :

• 175g S-R flour
• 175g unsalted butter
• 175g demerara sugar 
• 2tsp cinnamon 
• 3 eggs 
• 2tbsp elderflower cordial
• 200g peeled and chopped pears
• 200g blackberries(I soaked mine in 2tbsp of amaretto)

1. Heat the oven to 180C/160C(fan) and grease you're chosen tin
2. Put flour,butter,sugar,almonds and cinnamon in a bowl and rub together until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Put this to one side as its the crumble topping. 
3. For the cake: cream together butter and sugar. 
4. Add the flour,cinnamon,eggs and elder flower cordial and beat until combined. Gently fold in the pears,blackberries and amaretto into the mixture. 
5. Pop into the tin and sprinkle with the crumble topping. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 
6. Allow to cool and serve 

Inspired by this recipe

Bridgey's top tips for blackberry picking:

1. Firstly be careful , blackberries after all do live in brambles and it is not unlikely to find the odd nettle. Longs can be a god send especially as you might have to climb over some brambles.
2. Secondly if you are planning on picking some blackberries take along a container - in fact maybe just always have a spare in the car or a poo bag at this time of the year. worse comes to worse use a coat pocket (and yes my Barbour jacket now has a lovely blackberry stained pocket) 
3. Now nobody wants pee flavoured blackberries so don't pick to low to the ground.  On that note make sure you wash you're berries before consumption. 
4. However you can freeze you're blackberry booty but if you do don't wash them before freezing. 
5. Finally don't be greedy when picking as the chances are someone will love blackberry picking just as much.

So I do apologise that this was such a long post but honestly these taste amazing especially with a dash of cream or custard. 

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