Everyone should know how to make a crumble -- an old faithful and very difficult to get wrong. It delivers that lovely nursery feeling of a comforting inner spoonful. You can substitute any number of ingredients for the fruit filling, such as raspberries, rhubarb, black cherries, blueberries, apricots-- even a prune and Armagnac version if you’re feeling adventurous.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of flour of your choice (I use spelt)

• ½ cup of rolled oats

• 1 stick of butter, plus 1 tablespoon for the fruit

• ¼ cup of light brown sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for the fruit

• 8oz of blackberries (fresh or frozen)

• 8oz of apples, cored and chopped

Directions
1 Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2 You can mix the flour, oats and the 1 stick of butter in a food processor, or you can do it with your fingers in a mixing bowl. You want it to look like nubbly breadcrumbs. Either way, when it has reached this texture, mix in the brown sugar. Put your blackberries and apples into a pie dish and dot them with the 1 tablespoon of butter and the sugar. Cover the fruit with the crumble and bake it in the oven for about 30 minutes until the fruit is bubbling up and the crumble is a rich golden brown.

3 Serve with custard or crème fraiche.

Serves 6.

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From Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl. Published by Harper Collins. Copyright 2010 by Sophie Dahl. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Harper Collins.