Hedgerow Harvest: Super-quick blackberry upside-down pudding.

Earlier today we went on yet another blackberry foraging walk. This time, we tried a new route and struck blackberry gold. We come home laden with three big pots full of blackberries as big as the end of your thumb. I’m not exaggerating!

It was only after dinner tonight that we realised we had forgotten to make the promised blackberry pudding. With two worn out girls on our hands and no time to do anything fancy, but unable to face more cold blackberries, the challenge was on for a super-speedy desert. Drawing on a childhood favourite of upside-down cake, this blackberry version was born. It turned out pretty well in the end and looked good, although I cooked mine for a minute too long so the sponge in the middle was a little dry. Luckily I’d kept back some juice to chuck over it though so no harm done. In the recipe below I’ve also added a spoon of milk to help counteract this too.

If you’re trying to get through excess blackberries and need a super-speedy desert in ten minutes flat then it’s worth a go!

Ingredients

4oz / 110g butter or margarine

4oz / 110g sugar (ideally caster)

4oz / 110g self-raising flour

2 eggs

1 desert spoon of milk (don’t worry if you’ve not got it or use water instead).

3 generous handfuls of blackberries (or whatever you’ve got)

icing sugar (use normal if you’ve not got it)

pinch of cinnamon (optional)

teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional)

Method

• Lightly grease a glass or ceramic pudding basin.
• Place blackberries in a small pan, keeping back a sprinkling of blackberries for the cake mixture. Add just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Add a little icing sugar to taste. Heat on a low heat.
• Cream together butter and caster sugar in a bowl (not the bowl you’re going to cook the cake in).
• Beat the eggs then add slowly to the butter mixture and beat in.
• Throw in the extra blackberries you kept aside earlier.
• Add cinnamon and vanilla essence (if you want to!).
• Fold in self-raising flour.
• By now the blackberries in the pan should be heated through and have released their juices. Catch the blackberries with a slotted spoon and tip them into the bottom of your pudding basin. Pour over just enough juice to reach just below the level of the blackberries.
• Add the cake mixture on top. If you want to avoid the juice being displaced by the cake mixture, a good tip is to start adding cake mixture round the edge of the bowl first and then fill in the middle.
• Stick it in the microwave for 6 minutes (mine was cooked at 800w so adjust longer/shorter time depending on your microwave’s power level). It won’t look golden like cake mixture would from the oven but it should rise to the top of the bowl and be firmly spongy to touch.
• Remove basin from microwave, pop a plate over the top of it and tip upside down. The cake should come out and hey presto, pudding is ready!
• Use the extra blackberry sauce if you have any to drizzle over individual slice. Otherwise, serve with custard.