In Good Taste: Mary Berry and The Bible

As August slips into September, summer is steeping in us all like some strange tea. I am a firm believer that the seasons experience you; you do not experience them. I have been back and forth with myself this year, opting to spend time away from France, where I live for the majority of the year, to rediscover my England. There is something strange about a place you know in your marrow.

Ancient England is buried just beneath the surface of everything I do in my kitchen. I can find it demanding space for itself in my Parisian kitchenette, fat leaves of sage and spines of rosemary along my windowsill, sprigs of chamomile strung up in the wardrobe to dry. My Mary Berry cookbook is set on my bookshelf, an inch left of the Bible. Now that I am back in Blighty, I’ve had time to forget the unease of homesickness and focus again on home; what it is, and what it means to me.

My love for the English herb garden has always fascinated my mother and her black thumbs. My dear mother can kill almost any plant, seemingly just by looking at it. Over the years, friends of hers have gifted her incredible numbers of easy-to-tend-to plants, which, slowly but surely, have withered under her care. Now, when a hostess’ gift makes it through the door, it falls to me to keep it alive. To date, I have rescued a strawberry plant, geranium cuttings from my grandfather, two orchids, and about seven pots of mint. Although this seems noble, I confess that on a weekend away I asked her to water the seven mint plants, which means that now only one survives. Gone are the days when every garden in England had a herb patch for Culpeper remedies – now I have to hide things from my family if I want them to live through the month.

It isn’t that my mother forgets to water plants, or that she doesn’t understand gardening. Her parents have a flourishing garden, complete with a fish pond, climbing wisteria, and fruit trees which she grew up tending to. Instead, it is simply that a garden is unforgiving. My mother knows this more than any of us. As a child, I remember acutely her frustration with her inability to keep our London garden alive. She is tired now, of reaching for roses and coming back with a fistful of thorns.

Increasingly, the task of harvesting our fruit trees (apple, pear, and fig) falls to my brother and me – he shakes the tree and I dart underneath it with a bowl, trying not to get pelted with fruit. The rosemary bush is also our responsibility – as are the geraniums, the roses, and the ivy that climbs on the front of our house. My mother’s only friends are the great crops of jasmine which cover our entire neighbourhood, flanking our house on all sides. She is very proud that they are alive; although I privately believe this is only because she couldn’t kill them if she tried.

It has been an unnaturally hot and wet summer in England – one that has led our aforementioned apple tree into a complete meltdown. It is a temperamental tree, spitting apples at anyone sitting underneath it for too long, and indeed at our cat as she endeavors to climb it. The odd weather has meant that our apples are plentiful and all falling rather early in the season. With the smell of the tree in the air and a sudden deluge of cooking apples, I had to decide just what to do with a wholly unexpected glut of produce. I felt it was apt to return to England as it had returned to me; with childlike wonder.

A staple of any English child’s lunch hall, a crumble is hot mashed fruit with a topping of what can only be described as crunchy crumbly pieces. Not quite as put together as a pie, crumbles exist as an easy way to use up the produce – fan favorites from my youth include rhubarb, pear, and blackberry. It isn’t unusual to go on a long summer walk with a bucket for collecting blackberries from the hedgerows, which border many public footpaths. This summer I had no time for blackberries, as the apples steadily piled up and rotted gently in the heat. It was time to be decisive. Here is what I made.

APPLE CRUMBLE FROM N0. 78

INGREDIENTS: 

For the Apple:

6 granny smith apples 

6 bramley apples

Juice of a lemon 

¾ cup muscovado sugar (you can use light brown if you don’t have any)

1 tbsp vanilla extract and 1 vanilla pod 

¾ cup marzipan 

5 tbsp unsalted butter 

For the crumble:

50g of cold butter in cubes (1.8 ounces)

100g plain flour (3.5 ounces)

65 grams demerara sugar  (2.2 ounces)

Method 

1- Peel and core the apples before chopping them into chunks smaller than your thumb. Don’t worry too much about their size at this stage – you will be chopping for a while. As you chop, make sure the two varieties are mixed up well, and add them into a bowl with the lemon juice. It might seem like too many apples –it isn’t. 

Bramley apples are particularly at risk of blight so if you see any discoloring on the flesh, don’t worry – just chop around it and put the brown pieces in the bin. 

2-  Add the sugar and butter to a large saucepan over high heat. Add half the apple chunks and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Keep an eye on the pan and stir it every so often, cooking until the apple is soft – about 25 minutes depending on the depth of your pan. You want it to be like a cousin of applesauce. 

3- Add the remaining apples and bring them back to a boil, then to a simmer again – by this point the first batch of apples should have cooked down to mush. That’s good! Cook until the second batch of apple pieces are spongy and then cut the heat. 

4- Wait about 15 minutes for the apple mixture to cool and then stir in your vanilla. Open the vanilla pod and scrape as much as you can out with the flat of a knife. Put the husk of the pod into the mixture whole – don’t forget to take it out before you bake!

5- Using a fine grater, grate the marzipan into the apple mixture. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Celsius (about 750 Fahrenheit) – now it is time to assemble the crumble 

6- Wash your hands with cold water, or find a cold-blooded friend. The butter needs to be on the cold side to make this next part, so if you’re doing it in the summer like I was, move quickly. 

7- Rub the butter and flour together between your fingertips to make a light breadcrumb texture. Don’t overwork it or the crumble will be stodgy. If you somehow manage to make a dough, reflect on your choices. It's called a crumble for a reason!  Combine this crumb with the demerara sugar. 

8- Spoon the apple mixture into a nine-inch pan – but to be honest, any size dish you have will do. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the crumble is nice and brown. The longer you cook the apples in the pan, the less time they need in the oven, so you can play this one by ear. 

9- Serve hot with custard or vanilla ice cream. Will keep it for a few days in the fridge – but best eaten fresh!