John Wright
LATIN NAME
Rubus fruticosus
SEASONALITY
July–October
HABITAT
Widespread throughout the British Isles except the Scottish Highlands, in woods, hedgerows, gardens and on waste ground
MORE RECIPES
Wineberries with peaches and custard; Damson ripple parfait; Pear and bilberry crumble tart; Raspberry almond streusel cake; Peach slump
The humble bramble on which the blackberry grows is amongst the most giving of wild foods, providing free fruit by the kilo and endless opportunities for the cook to experiment. Picking such large quantities takes time and a certain amount of dogged fearlessness. Heavy-duty apparel is advisable, and an assortment of buckets, baskets and crooked walking sticks for reaching those really fat, juicy berries that are just a little too far away. Since brambles sport backward-pointing thorns of vicious intent, I don a leather gardening glove on my left hand to hold the fruit-bearing stem and pick with my right.
The blackberry has a long season, from as early as mid-July to as late as mid-October. Weather and location play a part, but there is also the innate variability of our native plants. The bramble is an apomictic species encompassing over 300 micro-species in this country alone. Each reproduces without resort to messy sexual mechanisms and its offspring are clones. The upshot of this is that there are over 300 different types of bramble, each with its own characteristics of fruitiness, berry-size, sweetness and season. If you find a good bush, remember where it is and go back next year.
The cultivated blackberries you find in shops are usually monsters compared to their wild counterparts but pretty juicy and tasty enough. There’s nothing wrong with them apart from their high price but, in season, I would much rather eat wild fruit. And out of season, I’d rather eat something else altogether. Garden-grown blackberries can be a nice option though: many modern varieties are thornless, sweet and fecund.
One thing I never worry about is the nonsense about not picking blackberries after Michaelmas, which falls on 29 September, though the superstition probably refers to Michaelmas by the old calendar, which was 10 October. The devil is said to spit on the berries and turn them bad – infected with the grey mould Botrytis cinerea. Since mouldiness is perfectly obvious, I will not be swayed by timetables and sometimes keep picking until early November.
Wild blackberries do not keep. Even a day in the fridge is too much for them, so it is worth planning their culinary destination even before you set off to pick them. Squashed, they will barely make it through the day, so collect in several containers, not all piled into one. It is possible, of course, to freeze them, but there are much better ways of preserving blackberries – bottling the whole berries in sweetened blackberry juice, or with sugar and cheap whisky, for instance. The juice can be served with the blackberries, the blackberry whisky partaken of at leisure and the whisky-soaked berries used in a trifle.
The enormous quantity of blackberries that results from an entire family spending an afternoon in their pursuit can overwhelm even the most inventive cook. Of course, the very best blackberries (usually the fat one at the end of the stem) are best eaten raw on the day they are picked, in a fruit salad, but what to do with the rest? Well, lots.
Blackberry jelly made with real fruit tastes divine. Crush the raw blackberries and push them through a fine sieve. Warm the juice in a pan with sugar to taste and add leaf gelatine (about 1 water-softened leaf for every 120ml juice, but do check because brands of gelatine vary). Pour into wine glasses, leave to set and serve with cream.
Blackberry mousse is another favourite, made by adding a little gelatine to cooked, sieved blackberry juice then whisking it into an egg-and-sugar mousse with a generous amount of double cream. But there is no end to the blackberry’s potential: fool, sorbet, soufflé, summer pudding, blackberry and apple crumble, muffins and pancake filling.
Finally, a country wine: blackberry is one of the few really exceptional home-made wines. Make it when the fruit is abundant: you will need 1.5kg for a 4.5-litre demi-john. It is among the easiest of country wines to make and I have never known it go wrong.
BLACKBERRY YOGHURT SOUFFLÉ CAKE
This melt-in-the-mouth cake is an elegant treatment for blackberries (or their hybrids, such as loganberries and tayberries). The tangy-sweet accompanying sauce is also lovely trickled over ice cream or pancakes. Serves 6–8
4 medium eggs, separated
100g caster sugar
400g plain wholemilk yoghurt
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
50g plain flour
150g blackberries
FOR THE BLACKBERRY SAUCE
500g blackberries
75g caster sugar
Juice of ½ lemon
Preheat the oven to 150°C/Fan 130°C/Gas 2. Grease a 23cm springform cake tin and line the base and sides with baking parchment.
Using a stand mixer or electric hand whisk, whisk the egg yolks with 65g of the sugar for 4–5 minutes until the mixture is very thick, pale and creamy; it should be thick enough to ‘hold a trail’ when you lift the beaters.
Carefully fold in the yoghurt and lemon zest. Now sift the flour over the mixture and fold this in too. (Don’t worry if you can’t get rid of every little lump of flour at this point.)
In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites with the remaining 35g sugar until they hold soft peaks. Carefully fold the whites into the batter then fold in about two-thirds of the berries.
Tip the mixture into the prepared cake tin, give it a shake to level it out and dot the remaining blackberries over the top. Bake for about 50 minutes until risen and golden with a slight wobble.
Leave to cool completely in the tin (it will sink, but don’t worry), then refrigerate.
Meanwhile, make the sauce. Put the blackberries, sugar and lemon juice into a pan and heat gently, stirring, until the juices start to run, then simmer gently for about 10 minutes; the fruit will release lots of juice. Leave to cool in the pan, then rub through a sieve into a bowl; you will have a thick, smooth blackberry sauce. Taste: it should be nicely tangy, but if it seems too sharp, whisk in a little icing sugar. Chill the sauce.
Serve the cake in thick wedges, with the sauce poured generously over the top.