Blackberries are in season

My lovely neighbour has just given me a big jug full of juicy blackberries from her garden.  I am going to put these to good use and make a Blackberry and Apple Loaf for Ben, Holly and Josh. (sneaky way to get to your 5 a day recipe, taken from the Good Food website.)

I also found these great verse about blackberries that sums up their appeal...

O, blackberry tart, with berries as big as your thumb, purple and black, and thick with juice, and a crust to endear them that will go to cream in your mouth, and both passing down with such a taste that will make you close your eyes and wish you might live forever in the wideness of that rich moment. (An extract from How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn)

Blackberry and Apple Loaf

Ingredients

250g self-raising flour
175g butter
175g light muscovado sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
2 rounded tbsp demerara sugar
1 small eating apple , such as Cox's, quartered (not cored or peeled)
2 large eggs , beaten
1 orange , finely grated zest
1 tsp baking powder
225g blackberries

Method

1.Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4/fan 160C. Butter and line the bottom of a 1.7 litre loaf tin (see tip below). In a large bowl, rub the flour, butter and muscovado sugar together with your fingers to make fine crumbs. Measure out 5 level tbsp of this mixture into a small bowl for the topping, and mix in to it the cinnamon and demerara sugar. Set aside.

2.Coarsely grate the apple down to the core and mix in with the eggs and the zest. Stir the baking powder into the rubbed-in mixture in the large bowl, then quickly and lightly stir in the egg mixture until it drops lightly from the spoon. Don't overmix.

3.Gently fold in three quarters of the berries with a metal spoon, trying not to break them up. Spoon into the tin and level. Scatter the rest of the berries on top. Sprinkle over the topping and bake for 1¼ -1 hour 20 minutes. Check after 50 minutes and cover loosely with foil if it is browning too much. When done the cake will feel firm, but test with a skewer.

4.Leave in the tin for 30 minutes before turning out, then cool on a wire rack. Peel off the paper before cutting. Will keep wrapped in foil or in a tin for up to 2 days.