Late summer is the time for bramble picking. Even in the urban centre of a town you'll find places where brambles give their bounty of sweet black berries freely. You won't need much fruit for this recipe, a few handfuls will be enough. It's a shallow tart rather than a filled quiche, and it couldn't be simpler to throw together. We had a great harvest this year from the bramble hedge in the High Town Peace Garden. 

Ingredients and tools 

• 200 g plain white flour (wholewheat works, too)

• 50 ml water

• a pinch of salt

• 100 g cold butter, cubed

• around 100 g marzipan (the best quality you can find)

• 2 to 3 handfuls of blackberries (wash only if you think they need it)

• a little icing sugar to roll out the marzipan and to sprinkle over to serve (optional)

You'll also need: 

• a medium size bowl

• a spring form or quiche tin (but you could probably make this work on a flat baking sheet, too)

• baking paper, large enough to fit your tin (optional)

• a rolling pin (but I have been known to use a glass bottle instead)

• a fan oven at 200C/(220C for non-fan)

Method

Start with making the shortcrust pastry. You may have your favourite way to do this. Here's mine: 

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the pinch of salt. 

2. Remove the butter from the fridge and cut swiftly into small cubes.

3. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

4. At the 'breadcrumb stage', add the very cold water and swiftly everything into a ball. It doesn't matter if it isn't smooth. The golden rule is not to overwork the dough. 

5. Place dough onto a piece of baking paper, flatten the dough into a thick pancake shape, fold the paper over and place in the fridge for half an hour, or into the freezer for 15 minutes

While the dough chills out in your fridge or freezer:

1. Roll out the marzipan, you can use icing sugar to stop it sticking to the worktop. You're looking for a thickness of between 3 mm and 5 mm.  Roll it out to a circle the size of your tin. 

2. Preheat the oven. 

Assemble and finish everything

1. On the baking paper, roll out the chilled shortcrust pastry to a big circle of about 4 mm thickness. A little extra flour might help. 

2. Place the pastry with the baking paper into your tin or spring form. 

3. Place the marzipan layer on top. 

4. Sprinkle over the blackberries - they won't cover all the marzipan. Think stars in the milky way rather than peas in a pod. 

5. Bake in the hot oven for around 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the marzipan has soaked up the blackberry juices. 

To serve, give it a dusting of icing sugar. Enjoy!