Blackberry Crisp With Cardamom Custard Sauce

You could use a combination of berries (raspberries, blueberries and blackberries in equal parts) in this crisp, but it especially sings with just blackberries. (Wild blackberries, if you can find them, are even better.) Cardamom perfumes the accompanying rich custard sauce. The warm, musky spice adds a flavor that’s perfect with berries. The crisp needn’t be served piping hot straight from the oven; it’s delicious served at room temperature or just slightly warm.

Ingredients

• 1

  cup/128 grams all-purpose flour

• ½

  cup/100 grams granulated sugar

• ½

  cup/113 grams salted butter, cold and thinly sliced

• Pinch of ground cardamom

Preparation

1. Make the topping: Put flour, sugar, butter and ground cardamom in a medium bowl. Using your fingertips, work ingredients together until the mixture resembles wet sand with a few stray pebbles. (The topping can be made in advance and refrigerated for 1 week or frozen for up to 2 months.)
2. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss the blackberries with ½ cup/100 grams sugar and transfer the mixture to an 8-inch square baking dish.
3. Sprinkle topping over berries loosely, and transfer to the oven. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the topping is well browned. Let cool for 10 minutes, or serve at room temperature.
4. As the crisp bakes, make the custard sauce: Put half-and-half and sugar in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the cardamom seeds and bring to just under a simmer, stirring. Put yolks in a bowl and whisk until smooth, then whisk in 1 cup of hot half-and-half mixture. Pour the contents of the bowl back into the saucepan and cook, whisking, on a very low flame until the mixture barely thickens, about 5 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Serve sauce hot, or let cool and refrigerate until ready to use. (Sauce can be made up to 2 days in advance.)
5. To serve, scoop large spoonfuls of crisp into individual shallow bowls. Ladle the sauce around each serving or pass the sauce at the table.