Blackberry fluff and butter biscuits

The recipe for blackberry fluff has been in my “to make” folder for about three years and, even though blackberries are not in season at the moment, I decided to make it this weekend.

I think what’s held me back is that the dish always seemed a little incomplete but this week I had my eureka moment and realised that what it needed were some little biscuits to dip in it. I find that little biscuits are the answer to most of life’s problems.


The biscuits could not be easier to make and if you leave the raw dough in the fridge for several hours it is very easy to cut and you get a nice clean looking biscuit.

Chilling the dough in a sausage shape makes it easy to cut uniformly shaped biscuits:



The fluff is not oversweet and retains the slight sharpness of blackberries. This works really well with the sweet buttery biscuit.

Ingredients:
For the fluff (this quantity makes 4 small portions, the recipe is easily doubled for more):
300g blackberries
1 tablespoon caster sugar
250g mascarpone
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150ml double cream

For the biscuits:
275g plain flour
200g unsalted butter
90g icing sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Optional: Demerara sugar to roll the biscuits in

How to make:

- Heat the blackberries (keeping a few aside for decoration) gently with the sugar until they just start to create some juice.
- Blitz the blackberries in the food processor then sieve. You will have a very dark thick syrupy liquid.
- Beat the mascarpone until it softens and then fold in the blackberry puree and vanilla.
- Whip the cream to the soft peak stage and fold in.
- Spoon into dishes and decorate with the whole blackberries you put aside at the start.
- Refrigerate.
- Now make the biscuits: put the flour and butter into a food processor and blitz until they resemble bread crumbs.
- Add the icing sugar and vanilla and blitz again until the mixture just starts to form a dough.
- Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly.
- Shape (i.e. roll) the dough into a fat sausage shape approximately 30cm long.
- Optional: roll the sausage in some Demerara sugar to add some crunch to the finished biscuits.
- Cut the sausage in half so that you have two more manageable pieces of 15cm each, and wrap each half in clingfilm.
- Refrigerate for at least an hour – the longer the better.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.
- Line two baking sheets with baking paper.
- Take one of the sausages from the fridge and cut into discs marginally less than 1cm thick. Use a sharp knife so that you don’t squash the shape of the biscuit.
- Lay the discs, slightly apart on the baking sheet and repeat the process with the second sausage of dough and the second baking sheet.
- Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until the biscuits are pale golden. The tray on my top shelf took exactly 10 minutes and I found that the lower shelf needed a further 4 minutes.
- Let the biscuits firm up before you move them onto a wire rack – they will be fragile straight from the oven.
- Leave to cool completely before storing in an airtight tin until needed.
- Serve the blackberry fluff with the biscuits.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.