The other week Ed and I had a very companionable afternoon picking blackberries in Harrogate. I obviously got my new jumper full of thorns and we both ended up walking home nursing nettle stings.

Anyway, armed with a large container of frozen blackberries (or brambles as my family calls them) and some beautiful apples very kindly given to me by my mum and FN at work Harvest crumble bars were born. I took these to work earlier and they were very popular. The fruit goes nicely with the flapjack base and the colour and texture of this is simply wonderful. As this recipe uses pretty Autumnal fruit you can adapt it with any berry and apple or pear combination you fancy; you could use frozen fruit in the depths of winter too. In addition it would also work really well with rhubarb.

To make these you will need:

For the flapjack base

250g porridge oats

125g brown sugar

125g butter

3 tbsps golden syrup

For the fruit layer

5 apples (approximately)

Approx 400g berries (I used the blackberries I picked that my mum ended up freezing)

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the crumble topping

60g butter

60g Demerara sugar

75g plain flour

25g porridge oats

 

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a large square baking tin. Make a start on your flapjack base by melting your butter and sugar together.

Add this to your brown sugar and porridge oats. Once this is well mixed add this to your baking tin and make sure it is flattened down evenly across the tin.

Peel and chop your apples and cut into 1cm pieces. Add to a pan with your sugar, berries and vanilla. Cook on a medium heat until the apple is soft and the fruits have released a good amount of juice. Cool for a few minutes.

I actually used some crumble topping I had frozen. However you make it by rubbing the butter, flour, sugar and oats together into breadcrumbs like I did in a previous crumble recipe.

Before layering up your flapjacks cook your flapjack layer for 6-8 minutes to prevent it from going too soggy. Remove from the oven. Add the fruit evenly across the flapjack layer.  Sprinkle over the crumble topping so that the fruit is lightly covered.

Bake this for around 15 minutes until the crumble topping is golden brown.

My housemate S and I ate one of these each fresh from the oven and I can assure you that they taste equally lovely hot or cold.