A few weeks ago months ago (man times flies), I headed to the country in pursuit of an old 50’s bond wood caravan. I found one on gumtree which was 3 hours away. I know totally nuts, who drives 3 hours to look at a old caravan? Me, thats who! I put it down to my mid life no scratch that my quarter life crisis, most people buy fast red cars, not me I go looking for the old vintage stuff.
So I headed off to the country with my Mum, who I persuaded to come along with me for the company, that and I need a car with a tow-bar on it. See totally nuts I don’t even have a car that can pull a caravan!! Anyway we headed off and because we where out in the county I figured that would be the place to find an old caravan just incase the one we where off to see wasn’t right, which sadly it wasn’t. So this is how the trip went the whole way there and back, yep 6 hours of it, well something to this effect.
Mum is that a caravan?
No its a truck
Is that a caravan?
No its a sheet on someones clothes line
Mum is that a caravan?
Yes but too modern
Is that a caravan
No its a goat
Is that one?
No its a car
Is that one?
Yes but too modern
Until…
Is that a caravan??
No its not a caravan its just an over grown carport
Are you sure, it looks like a caravan to me?
So Mum jumps out to have a look and sure enough its an old wooden caravan.
The owner a older gentleman, Joe, happened to be in his garden and comes out. He shows me the caravan which sadly had been sitting there a very long time and the whole back of it had fallen out and the contents of the caravan were slowly finding there way to the great outdoors. It was a bit far gone for my handy woman skills.
Joe lives in a little town about 1.5 hours from Melbourne, where he has an amazing garden filled with all types of veggies. Joe and my Mum got on like a house on fire, as they both share a love of gardening, we were at Joe’s for about an hour with them discussing the way to plant different types of plants. We left Joe’s with a few rather large bags of plant cuttings for my Mum to plant.
Dotted all along the road side near Joe’s where blackberry plants which reminded me of where I lived as a child, there were no blackberries on the bush, however it gave me a craving for that sweet juicy taste that only blackberries have, so when I got back to Melbourne I decided I would whip this next recipe up for you, which unfortunately uses canned blackberries rather than fresh ones but hey, its sweet and delicious.
Blackberry Slice
Filling
1 can blackberries with liquid (415g)
1 cup sugar
Pastry
200g butter
2 cups flour
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
Pre heat oven to 150C
Place the blackberries and sugar into a saucepan and simmer until the mixture starts to thicken. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Place the butter, flour, almond meal and sugar in a food processor and pulse until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Then pulse in the egg and water until a dough forms. Remove from the processor and knead a couple of times. Press half the dough into a lines 25X20 cm tin. Pour in the filling and then roll out the remaining dough and cut into strips, lay these over the top to form a lattice pattern. Place in the oven and bake for 30mins or until golden.
A great and simple recipe – an beautiful photos, as always 🙂
Thanks Matejka!
it looks delish!
Thanks Dina, it really was.
Gorgeous pictures ! I am surely going to try this recipe soon.
Let me know how you go.
Would love to try this recipe, what is a can of blackberries in Canadian terms?
Hi Jean,
Thanks I didn’t realise I did put a weight in, all fixed now. Its 415g or 14oz.
Would love to try this recipe, what is a can of blackberries in Canadian terms?
Your blackberry slice looks divine! Such a pretty lattice topping too. I love it! And your adventure definitely sounds like some of our family vacations… Let’s just say my parents were saints to put up with inquisitive me and my brother in the backseat!
Yes parents really are saints, sounds like you kept your parents on there feet. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment
Looks very tasty and so neatly made!
Thanks Olga.
Hi Sophia, i can just imagine the two of you. Though you must admit you have had many a great adventure! Wow how beautiful are your food covers! You must have a huge collection of antique equipment and utensils now. Its funny but I only feel like I am really baking when I use “the right spoon or bowl” and its usually the one mum used to use.
Your blackberry slice is perfection!
Always G
Lol I’m sure you can! Life is one big adventure so yep I’ve had thousands 🙂 My collection is still slowly growing. I love that you use your mums spoon to bake, such a great way to think of you beautiful mum each time you are baking. She was a lovely lady.
Wow!!!! ace recipe…. Can it be made with jam though????? I haven’t a clue where canned blackberries can be brought from and blackberry season is almost over here????
Hi Laura, thank you.
Yes you can use jam but if you do just use the jam as the filling don’t add sugar to it, as the final result is basically a blackberry jam. You should be able to find can blackberries at your supermarket. You can use frozen blackberries or fresh ones too, the cooking time just won’t be as long as the can ones have more juice.
Right thanks for that, I used bramble jam in the end, they turned out ace!! Great recipe!!!
Yay I’m glad they worked out well!
Those are quite beautiful. Looks like they sliced very nicely too. We picked a bumper crop (nearly 3 gallons!) of wild blackberries here in Northern Califonia this year. If I had had more freezer space I would have been even More greedy! Anyway, were the canned berries done with sugar or no sugar? I would like to try these with some of my frozen ones.
Hi,
Thanks for stopping by. Did you want to can them? If so I would use sugar as the ones I have used are in a syrup. If your using the berries straight from the freezer to make the slice yes use the sugar, and they will work out fine.
Just beautiful!
Thank you Lizzy.
Beautiful shots! I’d love a wooden caravan too, but it’d probably tip my husband over the edge…
Ha ha ha oh well I guess that why no one will marry me, I might tip them over the edge with my outrages ideas 🙂
Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after
checking through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
Anyways, I’m definitely delighted I found it and I’ll be book-marking
and checking back often!
I’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your sites
really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your website to come back later on. Many thanks