Apple and blackberry cream cobbler

New

Serves 6-8

Prep 20 min

Cook 55 min

What started as a British crumble turned into something closer to an American cobbler, part of a family with puzzling names: slumps, grunts, buckles, sonkers…very onomatopoeic. Double cream stands in for the usual butter and milk here; it gives the topping a softer, more tender texture. Serve warm with custard, ice cream or pouring cream. Or even clotted cream if you can find some.

Ingredients

300g	caster sugar
2 tsp	ground star anise
1 1/2 tsp	ground cinnamon
1 tbsp	cornflour
1kg	Granny Smith apples (about 9 apples), peeled, quartered, cored and thinly sliced (roughly 0.5cm thick)
500g	Bramley apples (3 apples), peeled, quartered, cored and thinly sliced (roughly 0.5cm thick)
150g	blackberries
40g	cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
300g	plain flour
1 1/2 tbsp	baking powder
1 tsp	fine sea salt
360ml	double cream, plus an extra 40ml for brushing
40g	demerara sugar
	Cream, custard or ice cream, to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C.
In a large bowl, whisk together 180g of the caster sugar, the star anise, cinnamon and cornflour. Add the apples, blackberries and butter to the bowl and toss to combine. Transfer to a large round baking dish (about 28cm in diameter) and set aside.
In a bowl whisk together the flour, the remaining 120g caster sugar, the baking powder and salt. Add half of the cream and use a fork to gently mix until you have moist crumbs. Add the remaining cream and, again gently, bring the dough together into a shaggy mass - it should be soft and slightly crumbly (take care not to over work the dough - you want a super tender and melt in the mouth cobbler!).
Using a large serving spoon, scoop out a handful of the dough, gently compressing it into a mound on the spoon, before sliding it off the spoon onto the fruit mixture. Repeat with the remaining dough (for a total of 11 mounds), making sure to leave a little bit of space between each one, to allow for bubbling juices as it bakes. Use a pastry brush to dab the extra cream on top of each mound and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180C and continue to bake for a further 30- 35 minutes, until the topping is deeply golden and the fruit juices are bubbling up around the edges. Serve warm, with your choice of cream.