Erin Fox
It’s not autumn until you’ve had apple and blackberry crumble or pie topped with delicious custard for dessert. My childhood memories are filled with homemade apple pie, crumble, or sponge pudding with handpicked blackberries and creamy custard. As long as it had apple, blackberries and custard, it didn’t matter whether it was pastry, sponge or crumble. It’s my go-to dessert when the blackberries are ripened on the hedgerow.
This muffin recipe is inspired by autumn desserts so, get out your tupperware some weekend and pick some blackberries for these apple, blackberry and custard crumble muffins inspired by the greatest autumn dessert.
They’re a fantastic dessert, afternoon tea treat, or picnic food, so you can pack them away while you’re out foraging for more autumn berries.
For the crumble
- 25g jumbo oats
- 25g unsalted chilled butter grated or cubed
- 25g plain flour
- 25g light muscovado sugar
For the muffins
- 100g butter
- 250 self-raising flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 100g golden caster sugar
- 2 bramley cooking apples
- 100g blackberries
- 2 eggs
- 150ml sour cream
- 2 tbsp milk
- 12 tsp custard or 15 tsp if using a cupcake pan
Preheat oven to 180 degrees fan and line a 12-inch muffin tin with muffin wrappers.
To make the crumble, mix all the ingredients in a bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs. Place the crumble in the freezer while you’re making the batter for the muffins.
For the muffins, melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat and then set aside to cool. Peel the apples and slice into thin wedges. Place them in a bowl and squeeze over some lemon juice to stop them from going brown.
Sift the flour, mixed spice, and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and tip in the sugar.
Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, melted butter, sour cream, and milk and stir with a large metal spoon very lightly just until the mixture is combined.
Gently stir in the apple and blackberries.
Divide the mixture into the muffin holes but start by filling each muffin hole half full. Next, add a teaspoon of custard on top of the batter and then top with the remaining batter. Repeat until all the muffin holes are filled.
Scatter the crumble all over the tops of the muffins before transferring to the oven. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until well risen and golden in colour. Leave the muffins to cool in their tins before transferring to a wire rack. Enjoy them hot as a dessert or eat them cold.
If you like extra spice, add a pinch of cinnamon to your crumble. This recipe also works great with elderberries instead of blackberries, or a combination of both.
You can also make the muffins without the crumble if you prefer.