Picking berries

The other day I went fruit picking (again) with Scott. Scott's Nana Hazel, was kind enough to let us raid her supply of gooseberries and red currents from her garden. It feels so good being able to pick your own fruit, there is definitely something very caveman like about searching for your own food and then eating it!

We used the gooseberries to make a yummy crumble! And the red-currents we ate straight up, and I used the leftovers to make some other desserts look pretty by laying them over the top!

This is Ollie, Hazel's lovely doggy. He was 'helping' us pick the fruits, and actually had a nibble on a few of the red-currents!

The colour of the gooseberries was so rich compared to the pale green variety you get in the supermarket. They were already nice and sweet so didn't need as much sugar adding to them as the store bought kind do.

I made a gooseberry crumble, and then a few days later used the left over gooseberries with some frozen berries from Lidl and made another one! Crumble is definitely a food obsession at the moment, I just cant get enough of it!

Gooseberry and berry crumble

The gooseberries Scott and I picked from the pick your own field came in handy for crumble time! I've recently planted a gooseberry push that I bought from Lidl but that wont be ready until at least next year, so until then its back to the pick your own! :)

I decided to pair the gooseberries with some frozen berries as I love the vibrant pinks and purples from the berries, and the tartness of the gooseberries.

The great thing about frozen berries is that you can have them in your fridge for the times when you havn't got fresh fruit and you want to make a crumble, or when you have a fruit that you don't want to use on its own! They're also really good when blitzed in the food processor with yoghurt and honey to make a sort of instant ice cream.

Ingredients:

1 large handful gooseberries

2 handfuls froen berries. I find strawberries dont work as well so try to avid them if possible!

2 tablespoons sugar

knob butter

Crumble Topping:

150g flour

125g chilled butter

35g Demerara sugar

Put your gooseberries in a pan with the sugar and simmer until soft. Add the berries once the gooseberries are soft. Cook for another minute then pour the fruit into your crumble dish.

Rub the butter and flour together until they resemble fine bread crumbs. Add your sugar to the the flour/butter mixture. Sprinkle over the fruit, make sure you don't press it down as this will effect the texture. Cook on gas mark 6 for about 20 minutes or until the crumble is lightly brown and the fruit is bubbling at the edges.

This was by far the best crumble i've made. The best combination of tartness and sweet. We had ours with cornish ice cream but you can have it with whatever you like or even on its own.