BERRY CRUMBLE.

A recipe in a magazine caught my eye this week and it got me thinking and creating and I rustled up a delicious yet healthy berry crumble that is super easy to put together, full of fruit and nuts with a little balsamic vinegar to kick start the flavour.

Ingredients:

For the fruit filling:

- 350g fresh or frozen berries (I used blueberries but anything would work here)

- a good squirt of maple syrup

- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

- pinch of salt

For the crumble:

- 20g butter

- 35g ground almonds

- 35g rolled oats

- 35g chopped hazelnuts

- 20g demorara sugar

- a handful of small pea-sized pieces of marzipan

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/180 fan/gas 6.

Put the berries in a saucepan (don't bother to defrost if you are using frozen berries) with the maple syrup, balsamic vinegar and salt. Give it a good stir and cook on a medium heat until the fruit is 'cooked' (which basically means until hot all the way through and as soft as you would be happy with - about 10 minutes for frozen blueberries, less if you are using fresh fruit) - try not to bash the fruit too much when you stir, especially with softer fruit like raspberries as the finished crumble will be better with larger fruit pieces. If you are using particularly sharp fruit, you may want to add a larger squidge of maple syrup than when using naturally sweeter fruits.

To make the crumble topping, add all the dry ingredients into a bowl and rub them together with your hands so that they are well mixed and sort of hold together. The amounts and nuts suggested above are a guide really so if you prefer to switch some around for different chopped nuts, or less nuts and more oats then do. The butter should loosely hold everything together and the sugar is there for a bit of sweetness. I personally love marzipan in crumbles and I often have some lying about the kitchen but if its not your thing, just leave it out and add a little more sugar.

Put the fruit into an oven proof dish and sprinkle the crumble topping on top. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes until golden on top.

Serves 2.