You Couldn't See Green Cheese But You'd Want It

When I was young there was a phrase that everyone always seemed to say to me when I wanted to try something which they had. 'You couldn't see Green Cheese but you'd want it.' As a phrase it intrigued the curious child in me of course, and I spent many, many years on the look out for Green Cheese. Could I see it? Would I want it? It seemed like it must've been the most elusive of foods, and as a result of constantly being told that I would want it, I inevitably did. It became desirable. My search failed, until now. Fanny always seems to fill in the culinary blanks. Her Green Cheese is also an ice-cream, which is a little unexpected to say the least. Will I want it after all?

Fanny says it's the perfect way to surprise your guests (I bet) while at the same time saving yourself the trouble of working on a finishing course at the time of entertaining. In other words, it is made in advance. It is one of Fanny's own special invented recipes, which came about after Johnnie apparently moaned on about the lack of 'this kind' (can only assume he means cheesy) of ice-cream for many years. I wonder if Fanny just misunderstood and he was repeating the phrase so often said to me? At any rate, Fanny locked herself in the kitchen for what she calls a 'trial and error session' where this recipe emerged and has been used to surprise her guests ever since.

This ice-cream starts of more like a sauce, by making a roux with melted butter, working in the same amount of sifted flour. The roux needs to be cooked for at least two minutes, according to Fanny's trials with error, before being transformed into a sauce with dry white wine. Gradually. Once combined, Fanny adds in single cream. Gradually again. It's quite a glossy sauce at this stage, perfect for adding grated cheese to. Fanny suggests Gruyère and Parmesan, but I substitute the Gruyère for some salty Swedish Västerbotten that I have been enjoying recently. I know that Parmesan is not vegetarian, but it's my choice. I like the taste. I'm a bad vegetarian. If you don't eat it, substitute for something you do, please don't send me nasty letters.

Off the heat, an egg yolk is beaten in and then some double cream. Gradually. You get the idea. Fanny suggests tasting at this stage and 'correcting' the seasoning with salt, pepper and even nutmeg if required. It's quite hard to know what the 'correct' finished product should taste like, but the Västerbotten I think provides enough saltiness and sharpness that no correction is required. It tastes like a cheesy, creamy sauce. It would be perfect with pasta. Fanny's top tip is to 'remember' that freezing diminishes the potency of both sweet and savour flavours, so best to 'err' on the side of generous. Remember Fanny has no doubt tried lots of variations in her 'trial and error' session, so she will know best.

The next error is a fairly major one for Fanny. The recipe just ends here. It's almost as if Fanny has drifted off. What happens next? Luckily for me, and you, Fanny repeats her recipes time and time again throughout the many cookbooks of her career, and this particular gem can be found in the 1970 masterpiece, The Cook Hostess' Book. The missing instructions are simply to divide the mixture into little moulds and freeze until ready for service. Little cones seem appropriate to me. For showing off, Fanny encourages us to transform the appearance of the finished ice-cream from a dull, flatfish cream beige colour with harmless green vegetable colouring, which is much more pleasing to the eye. I do half and half. I half-freeze it before piping and freezing again, I'm really showing off. My eyes are delighted. It's certainly a surprise to the taste-buds too. So next time anyone says that intriguing phrase to you, say proudly 'yes I can, I do and I have, thanks to Fanny!' She'd be thrilled.

The Gourmet has Galloped

Could it be that dear old Fanny Cradock inadvertently inspired one of the most famous moves in TV cooking history? Fanny began her TV career in 1955 in the U.K., only a few years before the soon-to-be Galloping Gourmet himself, Graham Kerr, was to launch his infamous 'leap' into TV history in New Zealand. "I was told," Graham told me, "that Fanny went to Paratroop training school to learn how to fall and roll in one fluid movement, which she then employed when making an entrance down a sweeping staircase! It might just have been this piece of gossip that got us thinking about jumping chairs as an entrance!" Fanny would've been absolutely thrilled to hear this, and delighted to claim the credit of course!

Food on TV has changed a lot since those times, and both Fanny and Graham helped in the transformation greatly. "I do miss the classics, but I am pleased at the attempts to 'nourish and delight' now. TV food shows have multiplied to such an extent and the audience has been so fragmented that budgets no longer allow for the time we spent on research, travel and testing. I truly tried to do my best - despite making 195 shows a year - to show how each dish was made, and still bounce a ball on my nose and finish on time - not an easy mix!" The average Fanny series had 10 episodes, and despite being known for her entertaining style, I don't remember any balls on noses! "My wife, Treena, said that I was the most unutterably boring man in the entire world, so I challenged her to produce my show. She demanded the first six minutes and then left the rest to me! The large audience came for a fun evening!" And they got it. "The Food Network credited Treena for having launched cooking as entertainment. I simply did what I was told, more or less!"

Things were slightly different with Fanny and Johnnie, although it seems they lived fairly similar lives off screen - dedicated to the shows. "I met Treena at school when she was 10 and I was 11, I can remember very little of my life that did not include her. I loved good food and wine, she loved a good laugh and a very well paced show. We lived, ate and slept that show - at the time we ate what I cooked. Since I developed every single dish myself, we wound up eating my experiments! It was fun, and at the same time not the best choice for a healthy diet!" These days it would all no doubt be featured on screen, kind of like a blue-print for Ina and Jeffrey? "I have not had a television connected to the outside world for over 18 years, so quite honestly I have no up-to-date opinion. I do warmly approve of most of Jamie Oliver's activism though..."

Like Jamie, and of course Fanny too (yes, even on the BBC), sponsorship and product placement was an important aspect of Graham's blossoming TV career. "I hated it from day one in commercial television," Graham tells me, "but it was a fact of life. To cook one needed ingredients and equipment, both of which used to have their brand names blacked out, but were still easily recognised. I cannot remember ever deliberately including anything in order to gain sponsorship, but once a sponsor came on board it was unlikely that I would use a competitors product!" Graham and Treena turned their backs on the lifestyle and fame that they had created however. "We gave the name Galloping Gourmet away, along with all our financial gains back in 1976 when we set off on our journey to recover our love for each other, and for our fellow man whom we had so little time." Graham tells the fascinating story in his book, A Flash of Silver.

The book is a great read for anyone interested in a genuine story of love, travel, early TV cooking, and the roller-coaster lifestyle that fame and fortune brought, for good and bad. Ever the innovator, Graham remains connected to his audience in a unique and special way. "I have turned a massive u-turn on that far less financially rewarding track, but I have never been so engaged with my readers as I am now on the blog that will explore A Flash of Silver for the next three years! God willing and the creeks don't rise too much I will make it, and hopefully finish well!" The galloping gang of group-thinkers in the Reflective Readers Club hope so too!

It all sounded great fun while it lasted, allowing Graham to gallop all over the world. Including a trip back to where it all began, to Scotland. There's a great section in the book where Graham recalls running along Princes Street at speed and unfortunately tripping, falling head over heels. All very Trainspotting. Perhaps Graham should've gone with Fanny to that Paratroop training session? "It was a dream come true to visit my home turf, my family comes from Ferniehurst, just south of Edinburgh. I loved every minute of our time there." And how was the food? "It was all well cooked, but without a sense of 'place' that I look for wherever I go!"

Food was so important to Graham then, and still of course today. "I'm not a vegetarian, like you, but I do aim for at least 7 servings of plant foods every day. As kids we were often told to 'eat up your vegetables, they are good for you!' It's our early attempts at rebellion to kick up a fuss and upset our well-meaning parents. As adults our tastes change and the Brussel Sprouts of our youth can now be a delight! My all-time favourite dish is from Scotland mixed with the land in which I now live. I call it P3 - Pale Pink Porridge!" Graham recommends I make a good bowl of wholegrain old fashioned Oats, adding frozen blueberries, raspberries and blackberries stirred in with some chopped hazelnuts. "It is quite pink and represents a place - Mount Vernon in the Skagit Valley, north of Seattle, 92, 000 acres of rich farmland and an abundance of berries!" A wonderful treat with a wonderful 'sense of place'. Perfect for reflecting on life with less of a gallop and more of a quiet ponder ... "I don't regret a moment of that show, we did it with a whole heart and wanted to believe that we brought some joy and understanding about food." Millions of fans would whole-heartedly agree. "One of my most sincere regrets is that I never met Fanny Cradock though." I think he means it too. Aw, wouldn't it have been sensational to see them leap over a kitchen chair together for a TV special 'Take Kerr with Fanny'!

Bringing Retro Back - 200th post! + Charlotte White Book Bundle Giveaway!

To help me celebrate 200 retro-tastic posts I've been chatting again to my Deliciously Decorated favourite cake designer, modern-day Fanny Cradock, Charlotte White, and she's only gone and dressed-up as Fanny for the occasion! 

Photography - Jez Brown Styling - Sarah Dunn 

Fanny thought she was Bringing Retro Back in the 1950s-1970s, and now we look back at those times as 'retro' - what does 'retro' mean to you and why are we obsessed with bringing it back?

Funnily enough, when I think of retro food, I think of Findus Crispy Pancakes and Birdseye Potato Waffles! I think that the element of nostalgia is irresistible to us - it seems to be in our nature to look back to the recent past through rose-tinted glasses. We do this with fashion and music so why not with cuisine too? Fanny lived through a great deal of social change as well as the huge impact of rationing, which I genuinely believe is still felt in some generations - my own Father was born in 1954, the year that rationing ended, so it should have had no effect on him but his capacity for sugar makes me wonder if my Grandparents made up for the years of scarcity with plenty of sweet things in their house.

Photography - Jez Brown Styling - Sarah Dunn 

You always dress so glamorously, and back in the day Fanny was renowned for her sense of style - how did it feel to dress as Fanny Cradock? Did you suddenly start to beat your assistants with perfectly ordinary spatulas? 

I was completely rubbish! I couldn't stop giggling! I am far too silly for this. I tried to channel Fanny's short shrift but would catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and corse up completely. My photographer, Jez Brown and stylist, Sarah Dunn, were no help either as this was the most bizarre thing we had ever done as a team! Jez is used to photographing pin-up girls and Sarah more often makes me up to pass as one, rather than a middle-aged woman. Plus, it didn't help that Sarah's German Shepherd, Suki, kept barking because she didn't like the look of me!

Fanny loved cakes that were bright colours and looked over-the-top in the impressive stakes - there were always neighbours that she never really liked very much to impress - what makes a stand-out cake design for you? Fanny's golden rule was blue icing for cakes, green for potatoes - what are your signature colours?

I completely agree with Fanny that a cake should be impressive and I love a brightly coloured cake. Some of the ingredients and equipment that we have in the kitchen now would make her green with envy - as green as her potatoes! I'm not sure if I have a signature colours so much of what I do is bespoke and created for an occasion. I get through a lot of white sugarpaste! Funnily enough, I do use a great deal of blue! I use an airbrush from Squires Kitchen to create ombre effects on sugarpaste and their colours are so interesting and vibrant that the only limit we have is our imagination now. Also, because food colouring pastes are more intense and less chemical tasting, we can create rainbow coloured sponge cakes. Fanny would have loved a rainbow cake!

Photography - Jez Brown Styling - Sarah Dunn 

We are seeing a lot of festivals, TV shows and so on Bringing Retro Back - which are your favourites and how do people relate to the retro themes? 

My favourite festival each year is the Twinwood Festival in Bedfordshire - it was part of the reason we moved here from London! It's three days of vintage shopping and music held on the air base where Glenn Millar took his last flight from. I've even been known to get involved in a Cockey Singalong in The Nag's Head pub on site... I was lucky enough to demonstrate for Kenwood in their kitchen theatre at The Goodwood Revival last September and can honestly say I've never felt more at home in my life. I loved working in the retro kitchen set with some of Kenwood's heritage products on display. Fanny would've loved to have access to the kitchen technology that we have now!

Fanny never wore an apron when she did demo's, and never had a spot on her ballgowns afterwards. Is this a realistic ambition? 

I always end up with cornflour on my boobs. Every time. It's just the way I am built! I've learned never to wear black for demonstrations for this reason. I've had chocolate buttercream all over me and have done the stand-mixer-icing-sugar cloud too, but that's all part of the fun of live cookery! When I am in my won kitchen and baking for orders I am fully aproned up. You can always tell if I am getting cocky if you see me demonstrating in a white dress...

So, if you were to style a cake à la Fanny how would it look?

I would want to create a cake that was glamorous and over the top. It would be adorned with pearls and diamonds and folds of taffeta in sugarpaste. It would be entirely fabulous and a little out of place in a modern setting, like Fanny. The icing would be blue.

Well, here's my go - it's Charlotte à la Fanny. I'm celebrating my 200th post with Charlotte's Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Icing. If you fancy winning a bundle of both her brilliant books, which will help you do a much better job than I have, just leave me a comment below telling me your favourite colour for icing and fill in the Raffelcopter thingy-ma-jig which will randomly select a winner. You must do both. The lovely folks at Ryland Peters and Small will send the books directly to the winner. Good luck! (UK Entrants only) 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rise Cream

There seem to be various dishes that Fanny Cradock thinks she can make anything into. Omelettes can be almost any conceivable flavour, savoury or sweet. Choux Buns can be filled with an extraordinary array of goodies, and some baddies too. However Fanny's very favourite dish is the soufflé. She's is always whipping one up at a moments notice, especially when the faces in the crowd show fear and disbelief that it will remain standing proud. Fanny has no fear when it comes to soufflés. She even makes an ice-cream version.

It all sounds a little strange, I mean a soufflé is baked and an ice-cream is, well, not usually. Unless it's a Baked Alaska. Soufflés are the ultimate in wow and wobble. Ice-creams are, well, stiff and static. How on earth will Fanny combine the two?

Fanny starts with soft fruit, which can be anything that happens to be available - strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, peaches, apricots or even Victoria Plums. They must be the Victoria variety apparently. I have some stray brambles lurking in my freezer from a foraging expedition last autumn. Fanny doesn't favour the bramble as we know, but I'm sure I can convince her.

Fanny insists the fruits are sieved to a purée, unsweetened. Emulsification will simply not do. To this she adds some simple stock sugar syrup, made simply by gently heating sugar and water until the sugar dissolves. Then boil it for a few minutes. Fanny asks me to whip my cream until it is piping consistency and beat my egg whites very stiffly indeed. Of course I comply, still a little unsure of what will happen next.

Fanny instructs poor Dianne to cut a length of cartridge paper two inches taller than the soufflé mould, and to attach it securely as a collar with tiny scraps of sellotape. Tiny scraps mind, no un-necessary wastage, which presumably Dianne had done sometime before to warrant such a warning. So then, the beaten cream is beaten into the purée, and the very stiff egg whites are folded in before the mixture is poured into the collared-mould for freezing. Fanny includes some detailed pictures showing Dianne preparing the finished iced soufflé for presentation, just incase you haven't got it yet. Dianne cuts the scraps of sellotape carefully, and removes the collar. Presto! She reveals a firm, but light and airy, smooth and perfectly set ice-cream 'soufflé' inside. It doesn't collapse when served, but may melt. Have no fear.

Totally Tropical Transformation

Fanny Cradock says almost any fruit, tinned or fresh, or even nuts, can be turned into a fabulous ice-cream. The most intriguing ones are flavours that you just can't pop down to the supermarket and pick up. Flicking through the pages of the ice-cream partwork I can't help but wonder if these long-forgotten flavours have disappeared for good reason, or indeed were they ever popular at all, apart from in Fannys mind? I mean have Ben and Jerry's ever considered Black Plum? Would Häagan Dazs whip up a quick batch of Green Grape? How about a Mackies Chestnut? Perhaps none of them have thought about Pineapple?

I've never seen Pineapple Ice-Cream anywhere. Perhaps I just lead a more sheltered life than I am prepared to admit, but I do hover around the freezers when I'm shopping looking at and, lets be honest, lusting after the ice-creams in particular. So, I'd probably have seen it. And bought it. And eaten too much of it. I'm a bit of an ice-cream fiend truth be told. So, you can imagine this particular partwork is especially pleasing for me!

Fanny uses her perfectly standard, perfectly whipped, perfectly frozen basic ice-cream, as ever. Just custard and cream whipped together and frozen really. To make it all pineapple-y she takes a tin of pineapple chunks and chops it all up into small pieces. I could only find pineapple rings when I went shopping, but my scissors made light work of them. I couldn't find the secateurs. Snip! Then smoosh! Transfer to the freezer for a bit, until the edges start to go solid, then whip it out, whip it up and whip it back in...

While you wait for it to freeze properly, Fanny has the perfect accompaniment which cunningly doubles as a garnish for presentation too. Fresh Pineapple. It's a little bit of a mystery why, if you were, in the first place, able to get hold of some lovely, fresh, succulent pineapple back in the early 1970's that you would opt to use a tin to make the ice-cream, and the fresh to make a garnish. Fanny's mind works in mysterious ways. Her mind is also excellent at dreaming up unusual and, erm, innovative, uses for things to transform them into other things that we least expect. Eggs as swans. Melons as baskets. Bananas as candles. You get the idea. Surely she had something extra special in mind for the humble Pineapple?

Fanny's instructions are to trim it and carefully, with a sharp knife, remove the skin. Sounding standard so far, no doubt she will soon suggest carving it into a swan... Fanny says to slice it fairly thickly into rounds. No swans then. And then each circle into quarters. No carving then. The next step is to dredge each piece in ordinary sugar to get them ready for assembly... Which means back into the shape of a pineapple. Oh. Transforming a pineapple into a pineapple. Kind of like Pineapple Jenga. But still a pineapple. The ice-cream itself is great, really tastes of pineapple. With the addition of some extra pineapple, it is well and truly a pineapple party. Served in a pineapple.

Fanny Features - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?

Back in July 1970, when there were only a couple of TV channels to choose from, a new series from the nations favourite, Fanny Cradock, always sure to be riding high in the ratings, was quite the big news. Fanny herself was quite the big celebrity, featuring somewhat strangely to todays eyes as the inspirational and aspirational poster-girl in flashy magazine spreads with her must-have celebrity life. So naturally she'd give quite the big interview to promote the new batch of shows. Sadly knocked off the cover of the Radio Times by the young whipper snapper Lulu, Fannys big scoop for her new series was how the journalist described her to the readers.

Sexy. Very powerful and very sexy, unbelievably those were the opening words. The good folks of 18th-24th July 1970 were mostly settling down to watch the excitement of Commonwealth Games beamed live from Edinburgh, so Fanny was pitched as the steamy, spicy and risqué alternative. They must've choked on their digestive biscuits reading this. Nestled after a far-from suggestive Party Political Broadcast by the Labour Party and between what I'm sure was a provocative but not-so titillating Mantovani Concert and the ever-sensuous Kirk Douglas in Cortez and the Legend, the BBC hid flirtatious Fanny and her new show away on BBC2 at 10pm. Presumably well after the watershed, and just before bed when viewers only had Ovaltine on their minds, was the only safe time to broadcast such an explosive sex-bomb to the nation.

The Radio Times writer does concede that her sexually alluring qualities don't always come across well on the box, especially with her hand-washing being reminiscent of Lady Macbeth. I should hope not, this was the BBC, and it was an educational cookery programme, essential for the housewives after all. The BBC, the nations favourite Auntie, wouldn't want the bumbling husbands attention to be artificially aroused by accidentally tuning in just for a glimpse of pure Fanny-shaped filth now would they? Anyway, the article makes it very clear Fanny only has come-hither eyes for one man, dear old Johnnie. Without him, she says, nothing would be worth a damn.

The article reminds us of Fannys professional abilities too, it's not all seductive, suggestive shenanigans. The old-favourites are trotted out - her rags to riches life-story, playing to screaming hordes at the Royal Albert Hall, Fanny being such a great cook and having several careers. All interspersed with scenes of idyllic, but fantasised, mother-hood and Granny-dom not only with her own beloved family, but in her adopted assistants who were always eagerly on site, fastidiously training to follow in her footsteps. The writer notes that the assistants are highly-selected from a pool of over 1500 applicants, with Peter the star-pupil, suggesting they may have been 'summoned to sit at Madame's feet'. Fanny snorts and 'with a look that would stop a bolting horse' replied, 'they'd be trampled to death, dear'. Such is her raw magnetism, clearly.

The new series has a suitably suggestive title for such an absolutely sexy lady - 'Fanny Cradock Invites...' Into her fabulous and well equipped home kitchen she means. That's where the provocation falters. Fanny is keen to show viewers around, but not her private quarters, just her sensational kitchen space, with cookers of every type in every space imaginable, poised for the assistants to begin. Fanny herself lays out a seductive spread in her garden before we leave, with a dish which surely says 'pure sex' like no other. It gets Johnnie fired up every time. Cold Green Omelette. Johnnie is standing by to keep the legions of lusty, libidinous men at bay as Fanny casually but passionately twirls her sunglasses and smiles a knowing smile. Like all true sex-maidens... 'You may want me, but you shall never have me'. At least we get the omelette.