A cross between a British crumble and an American betty, this is an incredibly easy dish in which jammy fruits are baked under a crisp, sweet and buttery breadcrumb crust. While many recipes for Betty layer breadcrumbs and fruit – especially in its classic apple version – this simplifies matters further to produce a surprisingly good crumble alternative. The combination of fruit, sugar, cinnamon and butter gives it the distinctive whiff of American bakeries.
The recipe below takes its inspiration from two very different sources – a column on ‘uncommon’ apple dishes in a 1922 edition of the Daily Mail and a recipe for a stone fruit betty in Tom Hunt’s Waste Not column in the Guardian. Hunt’s is fancier (adding nuts) and vegan (using olive oil instead of butter). The Mail version is more thrifty and uses margarine instead of butter.
Following Hunt’s example, I’m sure this would be lovely with any jammy stone fruit such as plums and damsons. My version used foraged blackberries but, before you get images of fruit picked on idyllic country lanes, mine came from a side alley near the garages on a local council estate that had been spotted by a friend.
This is very customizable. Substitute whichever fats you have for the butter. This makes it easily veganized. I used 3-day old wholemeal bread but this should work with pretty much any old loaf – white, brown, granary, seeded – although I’d avoid one that is rock hard. I removed the crusts before making the crumbs but it’s not essential. Substitute the caster sugar for whatever sugar you have. Do some maths and increase or decrease the quantities for what you have. These quantities make two large portions or four small ones.
Ingredients
- 45g butter
- 100g wholemeal bread
- 30g golden caster sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 250g blackberries
- a further 2 dessertspoons of caster sugar
Method
- Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas Mark 6.
- Melt the butter.
- Throw the bread in a food processor and whizz until you have crumbs. Alternatively, just chop or rip up your bread. It doesn’t really matter if you have small pieces rather than crumbs.
- Combine the bread, melted butter, 30g sugar and cinnamon.
- Cover the bottom of a shallow ovenproof dish with the blackberries to make a generous layer. (I didn’t have one the right size so I used two small ones). Sprinkle with 2 dessertspoons of sugar.
- Top with the breadcrumb mix and bake for 20-30 minutes until the fruit is bubbly and the top is browned and crispy.
- Serve with what you like. I used creme fraiche but cream, ice cream or custard would all be good. Serve hot or cold.
one million loaves 