Let’s get ready to Crumble

The romance and nostalgia of baking with autumnal fruit.

As Autumn potters on - an ever wearying fellow in trusty copper slippers - I am consumed by an urge to assemble crumbles.

I say ‘assemble’ because ‘make’ seems to assign too much credit to an act that is, essentially, putting a roof on fruit.

I have always enjoyed baking.

As with make up (another passion of mine), to study and cultivate an act of transformation, is to learn magic.

Baking is a love story of Science and Art.

Success is dependent upon their co-operation. They split their differences and fall head over heels, rolling as reckless romantics from bowl to oven as each concedes to its own horror, that it cannot function without the other. I am spellbound spectator to their dizzying coupling.

Watching something change state from liquid to solid, raw to cooked or observing the happy union of unlikely culinary pairings, reminds us of what is possible.

It’s a joyous and life affirming tribute to the heights that can be reached given the right chemistry and environment.

Gifts of food are commonplace in Autumn. Things literally do fall from the trees. And not just the trees! Hedgerows are alive with runners of brambles and fat rosehips. Bounty is shared willingly among humans, birds, wasps and rodents. Nature is abundant and there is more than enough to go around.

Cooking with foraged produce always feels so much more nurturing than with standard shop fayre. When we bake with love, rather than duty (and let’s face it, nobody ‘needs’ crumble), the sentiment filters through. When ingredients are harvested by those we care about, the ritual becomes even more sacred. The love within the food is doubled!

Plums are plentiful this time of year, as are blackberries. It has become a much loved tradition for my son and I to gather them. It’s a process we enjoy as much as the resulting creations themselves. It was how, as a tot, I first enticed him (okay, bribed him) out of his pushchair into walking longer distances. I recall it now, seeing him forget the bambi-ness of his little legs as he was coaxed along with the promise of yet another plump berry just a few steps on.

I cannot cook with blackberries without summoning to my mind ‘Brambly Hedge’ and those endearing illustrations of huddling mice. There’s something about a mouse wearing clothes that makes you feel about four years old and want to seek sanctuary upon an aproned dumpling of a lap to snooze away an afternoon.

As a girl, I had ‘Brambly Hedge’ themed notepaper and I have never wanted to write ‘thank you’ notes quite so much in my entire life. In fact, the charm of that writing set is probably responsible for my ill advised letter to ‘Jim’ll Fix It”.

Moving on.

Bramley apples also make a welcome return to my kitchen in Autumn. Their sharpness kicks sass into the sleepy slump of stewed berries. I adore their knobbly fist shape, blush patches and the fawn smudges that sit below their stalk, like dappled collars of pixies.

As I take my paring knife to them, I am reminded of a book I had as a child called “All the year round”. Puffin book club, circa 1982.

It was a fabulous compendium of seasonal ceremony and told me that the shape formed by my discarded apple peel would reveal the initial of my future sweetheart.

It was always a bloody ‘S’ though, and now, with a wealth of apple peeling experience under my belt, I imagine, it probably was the same for everyone. I wonder how many Simons, Stevens and Sams I stalked as a youngster, wondering if they were ‘the one’.

My mixing bowl is the colour of bad concealer and the weight of a medium spaniel. If I am to lift that beast from the cupboard (which is akin to grappling with a stubborn ceramic toddler), then I surely mean business.

I inherited it from my grandma and cannot use it without seeing the ghost of her hands dance within it. They were the shade of slivered almonds under frosted blue light. Her slender fingers were always cool to touch, because ‘cold hands make the best pastry’

Grandma was always my greatest and most patient baking mentor. As keen sorcerer’s apprentice to her Manc Mary Berry Merlin, it was at the helm of her buttoned, nylon housecoat that I learned such domestic witchery as rolling pastry, pressing out a shape with a cutter and watching jewel jam wrinkle as it is nudged into a waiting tart case.

Fun as these activities were, the thing a kid most wants to do, is get their hands dirty with as few rules as possible.

The free-form chaos of crumble, steps up.

Unlike pie crusts that demand so much gathering, pinching, forking and trimming, crumble toppings are the beaches of baking.

As naturally as infant to sandpit, l sift though flour before moulding gold nugget clusters with the grit of sugar and yielding butter. It’s a most satisfying sensory experience - lifting, dropping, scooping, scattering and sculpting.

Texture can be customised with the addition of oats, desiccated coconut or chopped nuts. The raw biscuit smell can be given pizazz with a little cinnamon or nutmeg.

Finally, resting fruit is lightly sugared, placed in a buttered baking dish, crumble ‘roof’ sprinkled upon it, and all is popped into a preheated oven. I set to making my crème anglaise accompaniment.

At this point, I could go in another room and wait, but middle-aged me quite enjoys pulling up a chair and watching the glorious slow motion process of browning; observing stewing liquid bubble up and emerge from the ‘earth’ I made, as rosy volcano.

The scent of the surrender of wild plums or blackberries is pure delight. Their bohemian gypsy perfume so different to that of their sterile supermarket cousins, bequeathing unto me both sonnet of blackbird and lament of bees.

And so, at last, arrives the moment.

The proof will indeed, be in the pudding.

Post creative endeavour, I gather my family, Waltons-style into the kitchen. There is no resistance as they too, are hypnotised by a kitchen cloud of fruity fug. Glowing with ‘good mum’, pride, I set down the splodges of oozing golden mound into waiting dishes, look to my pan and announce, as is customary;

“Oh shit, I’ve burned the custard.”