Allotment crops – freezer to plate

This is a really wonderful cake (or pudding) which I make for the winter days when we’ve been out on the allotments and we’re frozen and starved when we get home. It’s very easy, very substantial and has the taste of summer. It’s good enough to serve for a dinner party pudding, and robust enough to hand slices to any horny handed son of the soil who normally turns up his nose at ‘fancy’ food – and I find there are quite a few of that type, in allotmentland! It uses blackberries from the freezer, which we harvest off our plot (thornless, sweet and very large) and mix with wild brambles (thorny, small and tart) to get the perfect combination of juicy sweetness and tangy flavour. It's also very easy.

Cake
120g butter or margarine
120g sugar
2 large eggs
120g plain flour
200g blackberries

Rumble (it should be called crumble, but the boy called it rumble when he was a toddler and it’s been rumble in our house ever since)
60g butter or margarine
50g plain flour
100g sugar
50g oats

Preheat oven to 18ºC/gas 4. Grease and bottom line a 500g loaf tin, using greaseproof paper which rises up the narrow sides over the top (this allows you to lift your cake out at the end of cooking without disturbing the topping)

Place the fat in a mixing bowl. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating in well with each addition. Fold in flour. Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin, spreading to the edges. Top with the blackberries. Place the remaining flour in a bowl. Add the remaining fat and rub until the absorbed and the mixture resembles crumbs. Mix in the sugar and oats to end up with a fairly loose dry mixture

Sprinkle this mixture over the blackberries, spreading it out evenly but not pressing it down

Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before turning out. Great hot or cold, or with yoghurt for breakfast or warmed slightly with a cup of tea when you come in from a day’s heavy digging.

Labels: allotment-blackberries, allotment-cooking, allotment-crops, allotment-freezer