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# Wild Blackberry Crumble with Real Vanilla Custard
- URL: https://eatlikeanadult.com/wild-blackberry-crumble-with-real-vanilla-custard/
- Published: 2026-09-29T18:26:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-29T18:29:50.000Z
- Description: Wild blackberries from the Sussex hills, a crunchy demerara crumble with toffee edges, and my first ever proper vanilla custard. Sorry, Bird's.
- Author: Russell Clamp
- Tags: dessert

I'm a child of the eighties, which means I was raised on Bird's Custard. A spoonful of powder in a jug, a splash of milk to make a paste, the rest poured in hot, and a skin on top you either loved or peeled off. That was custard. In all the years since, I'd never once made the real thing.

The blackberries are what finally pushed me. We walk the dog on the Sussex hills most weekends, and by late September the hedges are heavy with them. I can't resist free fruit. You fill a bag, the dog loses interest, and you come home with purple fingers and scratched wrists. Then you bake a crumble, make custard from scratch and realise it's possibly the most wholesome thing you've ever done. I kept expecting someone to hand me a wicker basket and a gingham apron.

The crumble is all about crunch: big, uneven clumps demerara on top, and juices that turn to 'toffee' at the edges. The custard is thick, glossy and eggy, with a teaspoon of cornflour for insurance, which a first-timer like me was glad of. Folklore says you shouldn't pick blackberries after Michaelmas, which is either today or the tenth of October, depending on who you ask. Either way, there's still time if you can find them. Although in the year I'm writing this, 2026, the very hot summer means they seem to have bloomed and disappeared early.

### Before you start

- **The berries:** Pick above dog height, on a dry day if you can. Rinse them gently and let them dry properly, because wet fruit makes for a runnier filling.
- **Light hands:** Stop rubbing in the butter while you can still see pea-sized lumps. Over-rubbed crumble turns to sand and bakes into a solid lid. Squeezing it into clumps afterwards is what gives you crunch rather than a biscuity layer.
- **The freeze:** Fifteen minutes in the freezer means the butter melts later in the oven. The clumps set before they slump, and the sugar caramelises instead of dissolving into the fruit.
- **Dish:** Use the widest, shallowest dish you have. Metal or enamel conducts heat faster than ceramic. More surface means more edge, and the edge is the best part. I recommend preheating the dish so the juices get a head start and reduce rather than just simmer.
- **Timing the custard:** Start it as the crumble goes into the oven. It'll be ready while the crumble rests, which you shouldn't skip: the filling thickens as it cools.

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**Serves** 6 | Prep 20 mins | Cook 30 mins | Total 1 hr 25 mins (including 15 mins freezing and 20 mins resting)

**Custard serves** 2-3 | Prep 5 mins | Cook 15 mins | Total 40 mins (including 20 mins infusing). Double it for six.

### Ingredients

**For the fruit**

- 700g (about 5 cups) blackberries
- 75g (⅓ cup) caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- 2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced

**For the crumble**

- 150g (1¼ cups) plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 50g (½ cup) ground almonds (almond meal)
- 125g (1 stick plus 1 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 50g (½ cup) jumbo rolled oats (old-fashioned oats)
- 75g (⅓ cup) demerara sugar (turbinado sugar)
- 50g (¼ cup packed) light brown soft sugar (light brown sugar)
- ½ tsp flaky sea salt, crushed

**To finish**

- 10g (2 tsp) demerara sugar

**For the custard**

- 250ml (1 cup) whole milk
- 250ml (1 cup) double cream (heavy cream)
- 1 vanilla pod (vanilla bean), split lengthways
- 6 large egg yolks
- 75g (⅓ cup) caster sugar
- 1 tsp cornflour
- A good pinch of fine salt

### Method

#### The crumble

**Step 1: Heat the oven**

1. Put a heavy baking tray on the middle shelf of the oven.
2. Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan) / 400°F / gas mark 6.

**Step 2: Macerate the fruit**

1. Tip the blackberries into a bowl with the caster sugar, cornflour, and the lemon zest and juice.
2. Toss gently and leave to sit while you make the topping.

**Step 3: Make the crumble**

1. Mix the flour and ground almonds in a large bowl.
2. Add the butter and rub it in with cold fingertips, lifting high as you go, until you have coarse breadcrumbs with a few pea-sized lumps of butter still visible. Stop there.
3. Stir through the oats, the 75g demerara sugar, the light brown sugar and the salt.
4. Squeeze fistfuls of the mixture and let them crumble back into the bowl, so you end up with nuggets from pea to hazelnut size.

**Step 4: Freeze the topping**

1. Spread the crumble out on a plate or tray and freeze for 15 minutes.

**Step 5: Assemble**

1. Tip the fruit and all its syrup into a wide, shallow 25 x 20cm (10 x 8in) baking dish, so the fruit is no more than 4cm (1½in) deep.
2. Scatter the frozen crumble loosely over the fruit, right to the edges, leaving a few small gaps for steam to escape. Don't press it down.
3. Sprinkle the remaining 10g demerara sugar over the top.

**Step 6: Bake and rest**

1. Place in a preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes, until the top is deep golden brown and the juices are bubbling thickly around the rim and darkening where they meet the crumble.
2. If the top colours before the fruit is bubbling, turn the oven down to 180°C (160°C fan) / 350°F / gas mark 4 and give it another 10 minutes.
3. Leave to stand for 10-20 minutes before serving.

#### The custard

**Step 1: Infuse the milk and cream**

1. Pour the milk and cream into a heavy saucepan.
2. Scrape in the vanilla seeds and drop in the pod.
3. Heat gently until it just steams and small bubbles form at the edge. Don't let it boil.
4. Take off the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.

**Step 2: Whisk the yolks**

1. Whisk the egg yolks, caster sugar, cornflour and salt in a heatproof bowl until pale and slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

**Step 3: Temper**

1. Reheat the infused cream until steaming.
2. Whisking the yolks constantly, pour in about a third of the hot cream in a thin, steady stream.
3. Pour the mixture back into the pan with the rest of the cream.

**Step 4: Cook the custard**

1. Set the pan over a low heat and stir constantly with a silicone spatula, scraping the base and corners, for 6-10 minutes. It will thicken suddenly near the end.
2. It's ready at 82-84°C (180-183°F) on a probe thermometer, or when it coats the back of a spoon and a finger drawn through leaves a clean line that doesn't flood back.

**Step 5: Strain and serve**

1. Pour immediately through a fine sieve into a cold jug.
2. Stir for a few seconds to release the heat.
3. Serve warm, poured over the crumble.

![Overhead shot of Wild Blackberry Crumble with Real Vanilla Custard in a black bowl on a black background](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c8/de/c8dec2b5-3b9d-4556-a66b-3bf22da70105/content/images/2026/09/Wild-Blackberry-Crumble-with-Cre--me-Anglaise-2.png)

### Good to know

**Brown butter topping:** brown 150g (1⅓ sticks) butter, which cooks down to roughly the 125g you need. Chill it until solid, then cube it and rub it in as normal. It gives the topping a nutty, butterscotch depth.

**More body:** swap 150g of the blackberries for 1 Bramley apple, peeled and diced. The extra pectin thickens the filling without muddying the flavour.

**Make ahead:** the crumble mix keeps in the freezer for up to 3 months and goes straight onto the fruit from frozen, so make a double batch. The custard keeps in the fridge for up to 3 days with clingfilm pressed onto the surface. Reheat it gently in a pan, or in short bursts in the microwave, stirring between each.

**If the custard splits:** tip it into a cold bowl straight away and whisk hard, or blitz it with a stick blender for 20 seconds. It usually comes back.

**No thermometer?** Eyeball the consistency, and take the pan off the heat every 30 seconds or so to stir. The residual heat keeps it cooking, which makes overshooting much harder. although if you used cornstarch, you really do get another 10°C (50°F) to play with

**No vanilla pod?** Stir 1 tsp vanilla bean paste into the milk and cream at the end of step 1.

**Adjusting the richness:** for a thicker custard, use 350ml (1½ cups) cream and 150ml (⅔ cup) milk. For a lighter pouring custard, use 400ml (1⅔ cups) milk, 100ml (⅓ cup plus 1 tbsp) cream and 5 yolks.

### Worth the scratches

What I like about this is how little it asks. Fruit from a hedge, butter and flour from the cupboard, a few eggs. The skill is in small things: cold butter, a hot dish, the patience to let it sit before you dig in. And the custard, the thing I'd put off for forty-odd years, turned out to be nothing to be scared of. Milk, cream, yolks and ten minutes of stirring. I don't think I'll go back to the powder. The dog is still waiting for a share.

Russell