Last Updated July 10, 2024

Wild blackberries abound in Italy.

Ok, that's a bit general, I have not been everywhere in Italy, but I can safely say that they are abundant in Florence and Cinque Terre. I'm all for anything free and tasty, so I will always stop and pick a few when they are in reach.

Most evenings I like to go for a "passeggiata," or stroll, usually along the Fiume (river) Arno, and there are lots of vines that grow down towards the river. A fence conveniently kept me from clambering down and picking any, getting torn up by the thorns, and possibly dying in the pursuit, but that didn't stop a little nonna one evening from trying her best to reach through the fence and grab a few tasty morsels. I admired her greatly.

Along the hiking trails of Cinque Terre there was also a plethora, and they were perfectly placed along the trail for me to grab handfuls here and there, energy bursts for the 2 hour (solid uphill, both ways) trek! Especially helpful since I had already eaten my packed lunch before we even started hiking...

Then there was that one time when a friend, who loves to do triathlon and ride his bike for millions of miles, said he had passed a huge group of blueberry bushes while riding up in the rolling hills of Tuscany. So a group of us drove up to the spot, prepared with bags, open mouths, and welcoming stomachs. A couple of us headed to the nearest loaded bush, and although my first thought was "those are strange looking blueberries", it didn't occur to me to stop and figure out what they were before picking or eating any. They had been told to me as blueberries, therefore they must be. So the first thing I do? Pop one in my mouth. It was the single most sour/bitter thing I have ever had in my mouth. And I like sour things, I like straight lemon juice and lemons. But this had a pit and I was expecting a sweet blueberry. I swiftly spit it out and we didn't pick or eat anymore. For awhile after we were convinced it was nightshade, OH NO, and I thought I might die. Not really, it wasn't. But don't eat something in nature if you don't know what it is. JENNY. I'm looking at you.

Another evening I took a different route for my passeggiata and passed tons of blackberry bushes. They lined the road for quite a ways, and so I went back several times with friends to pick a couple bagfuls. I gained a few battle scars from the prickers, some "ciao bella's" from people passing on the road probably wondering what is that weird girl doing climbing on the road guard half hidden/hanging from thorns in bushes, but most importantly, free berries. And what do you do when you have too many blackberries to eat? You bake with them, of course. Delicious and tender banana bread with little bites of blackberries dispersed throughout topped with a sweet cinnamon streusel.

*All photos of food in this post are credited to my friend, Bailey Shoemaker Guthrey. She’s a visual design natural!

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Recipe by Jenny

B-A-N-A-N-A:

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Blackberry Banana Bread with Cinnamon Streusel

Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Banana Coconut Breakfast Cookies

Blackberry Banana Bread with Cinnamon Streusel

Ingredients:

For the Blackberry Banana Bread

2 cups / 240g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup / 150g sugar
1/2 cup / 112g oil
2 eggs
2-3 large bananas, mashed, about 300g
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups / 181g blackberries

For the Cinnamon Streusel

3/4 cup / 90g all-purpose flour
1/3 cup / 67g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3 Tbsp / 42g cold butter

Directions:

Oven 350°F / 177°C. 1 greased 9x5in / 23x13cm loaf pan.

Make the Blackberry Banana Bread

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
In another large bowl, beat together sugar, oil, eggs, banana, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Gently fold in blackberries.
Pour into prepared pan.

Make the Cinnamon Streusel

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Using a pastry cutter, a fork, or my preferred method, clean hands, add butter and mix until crumbles form, like coarse pebbles.
Sprinkle evenly over batter in pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out almost clean.
Allow to cool in pan at least 10 minutes before removing to cool completely.

Jenny's Notes:

Feel free to substitute any type of berry for the blackberries! Blueberries and raspberries are also delicious.
This is a great recipe to use up sourdough discard. Use up to 100g and add in with the wet ingredients, proceed as instructed.
Bananas are always a bit of guess work to measure because recipes will give measurements without having any idea how big or small your bananas are. If you see a recipe with a measurement of 300g, like the one above, and that ended up being 2 + 7/16 of a banana, what are you going to do with the remaining 9/16 of that mushy banana? No worries, using a little more or less banana than called for shouldn’t yield anything other than delicious bread. The more banana the more moist it will be, and also a touch heavier. Go too far and it will start becoming gummy.