Mr Nicholas Balfe’s take on a classic seasonal pudding.

It seems like it’s been a bumper year for so many British fruits this year. The cherries have been some of the best I’ve ever tasted. The gooseberry season seemed to go on and on, well into late summer. We’re still buying deliciously plump blueberries from the Wye Valley and native varieties of plums – such as my favourite, Victoria – arrived early, blushing red, juicy and ready for eating.

But at this time of year there are so many wild fruits around that it’s worth looking beyond the supermarket or greengrocer for your fix of late-summer berries. The hedgerows, canal sides and woodlands are positively bursting with elderberries, damsons and sloes among the foliage, while rosehips and hawthorns also vie for attention. But perhaps the most accessible of all wild fruits to be picked right now are blackberries.

On a recent Sunday afternoon wander around Hampstead Heath in London, my friends and I gathered Tupperware after Tupperware of perfectly sweet-tart blackberries, staining our fingers red in the process and only narrowly avoiding the menacingly barbed brambles.

I recommend heading out to your local park or green space and having a look for yourself; the bramble bushes tend to grow about head height, with rolling, knotted stems that curl in and around one another. Pick berries that easily come away from the bud when you pinch them – any resistance shows they are not quite ripe yet and won’t have developed any sweetness.

Below is a simple recipe that’s a great way of using up your haul of foraged blackberries and is a perfect weekend dessert to come home to after a late-summer/early-autumn stroll in the woodlands, especially as the weather begins to turn slightly colder.

Wild blackberry crumble with almond and buckwheat topping

Serves 4 (with leftovers)

500g wild blackberries (rinsed in clean water) 200g red or purple plums, such as Victoria, stone removed and roughly chopped A drizzle of maple syrup

For the topping:

125g unsalted butter, melted 150g plain flour 100g buckwheat flour 50g flaked almonds 100g caster sugar A pinch of sea salt

Crème fraîche or natural yoghurt, to serve

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Place the blackberries and plums in a suitably sized ovenproof dish (approx 20-24cm in diameter), and then drizzle over some maple syrup. How much you drizzle depends on how sweet your blackberries are, and how sweet you like your desserts…

Next, make the topping. Mix all the remaining ingredients together in a bowl until the butter is fully combined and the mixture forms irregular-sized lumps. The lumps give a nice texture when cooked so don’t worry about breaking them up too much. Spread the topping out across the blackberries and plums in the ovenproof dish.

Bake in the oven for approximately 20-25 minutes until the topping is golden brown and you can just see the liquids from the fruits bubbling to the surface. Allow to cool slightly, and serve with cold crème fraîche or yoghurt on the table – it’s perfect for cutting through the sweet, biscuity richness of the dessert.

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