At this time of the year in Ireland as a child we always went picking blackberries.
There was never any question, the tradition was instilled.
A certain amount was eaten as they were picked, quite a lot in fact, some was taken home and turned into Blackberry and Apple Tart. Or Blackberry and Apple Crumble ( my favourite) but the largest amount was guarded carefully by my mother to be turned into Blackberry jam.

Strangely I was never a great fan of Blackberry jam, I always hated the seeds getting stuck in my teeth, my mother, aware of this came up with a solution which she called Bramble Scramble.
This was a sort of Blackberry Cheese, where the blackberries were pushed through a sieve to extract the pips.
This meant that the resulting jam was cloudy, unlike the limpidity one got from Bramble Jelly when the fruit juice was strained through a jelly bag- but it still tasted great..

Bramble Scramble

1 kg Blackberries
750 g Jam Sugar

Mix the berries and the sugar well together and put on a very low heat until the sugar melts.
Then increase the heat and boil hard for five minutes.
Put a teaspoonful on a cold saucer and see if it wrinkles when you nudge it.
If not boil for another minute or two..
Push the mixture through a fine sieve to extract the pips and pot.

But as I said above my real treat was the crumble.

Blackberry and Apple Crumble

For the Crumble:

225g (8 oz.) Flour
110g (4 oz.) Butter
90g (3 oz.) Sugar

700g (1 ½ lbs) Eating or Cooking apples
350g (¾ lb) Blackberries
110g (4 oz.) Sugar

Pre heat the oven to Gas 4, 175C, 350F.

Peel and dice the apples and mix with the blackberries and the sugar.

Put these in the bottom of an ovenproof dish

Cut the butter into little dice and rub this into the flour until it is like breadcrumbs.
(Or pulse together in a food processor)
Stir in the sugar.
Sprinkle this mixture over the fruit and put into the hot oven.
Cook at the set temperature for about 20 mts until the crumble is golden brown and crunchy.
Serve hot with custard or Greek Yoghurt.