Blackberry Compote

In the last few weeks, my views about breakfast have become so much stronger.  I find it so important to have breakfast in the morning.  Every morning, within ten minutes of waking up, I'm always in the kitchen pouring myself a glassful of tap water and preparing myself either a bowl of cereal (without milk) or a slice of marmalade toast.  I'll then be dancing around my bedroom to some CD or other to rev up my energy for the morning.  But I'm now learning that although breakfast is so important, a lot of my friends seem to skip it.  They wake up too late to have breakfast before lectures, they prefer to have breakfast later in the day, they're too busy for breakfast, other reasons.  It shouldn't bother me so much, but it does.  I see breakfast as one of those foundation blocks for staying healthy as it gives you energy to concentrate for the morning, especially if you have 9am lectures like I do.  I know that what I described above for breakfast is quite small, but that's what suits me.  However, sometimes at the weekend or in the holidays, I might have a larger breakfast of crepes as a treat.  Usually, I'll eat them with sugar and lemon juice or with honey, but this blackberry compote, which I found in the September 2013 edition of the Tesco Food and Living magazine, also seems like a sweet and fruity choice to spread onto my crepes, pancakes or even on my toast.

Ingredients (to serve 4)

100ml (3 1/2 fl oz) orange juice
1 teaspoon cornflour
100g (3 1/2 oz) caster sugar
200g (7 oz) blackberries, some left whole
a pinch of ground cinnamon
a pinch of ground cloves

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, combine 1 tablespoon of the orange juice with the cornflour.  Stir until smooth and set aside.
2. Put the caster sugar, berries, spices and the remaining orange juice in a medium pan and heat on low until simmering (this should take about 1-2 minutes).
3. Stir in the cornflour mixture, lower the heat and cook for another 3 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.  The compote can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 4 weeks.