Respect Your Aelder

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. At least in Fanny Cradock's world. Having said that, she does start planning for the fateful day in January, such is the importance she places on the occasion. So perhaps everyday is like Christmas? For now though it's not puddings, fruit cakes, mincemeat or even decorations that has got Fanny all stirred up - it's the chance to say, although you may say uncharacteristically, 'thank-you' to all those that have supplied her throughout the year.

You see there were seemingly certain teams of people who worked for the Cradock's who they sent large gâteaux for them to eat in their offices on their last working day before Christmas. They obviously had a lot of these mystery office workers dotted around, and they all needed a suitable cake to be dispatched in time for the final hoorah of the year. Clearly the cakes had to be delicious, full-on festive and large enough for the whole team to dig in. Fanny set her own housebound team to work on the 'thank-you' cakes. Michael started by making endless swiss roll panels. The ones which never crack.

We've made them before, but I always enjoy doing them. So easy, and light, with fluffy panels resulting. As well as the panels, Fanny of course needed an almost endless supply of buttercream. She does have an unusual method for making it, or rather getting her team to make it. She starts with egg yolks. And a double-boiler. The yolks are whisked to a frenzy with icing sugar over a gentle thread of heat until pale and 'like cream'. Meanwhile, butter is also beaten until pale and fluffy, and then added to the eggy-sugar-cream mix. The result is a lovely, natural looking buttercream. It tastes pretty good too.

Fanny tends to top these 'thank-you' cakes in mocha glacé icing. It's what you think of for Christmas, isn't it?  No, me neither. So I switch up the coffee for a new Scottish, foraged liqueur, or elixir, that I tried this week called Aelder. It's made by Buck and Birch, and packs a punch of herbs, botanicals and christmassy flavours of sweetness and spice. Should be perfect. Fanny borrows her recipe from Gretel Beer (who I also love) which is essentially a syrup, with added chocolate chips and a little olive oil. The Aelder makes a tempting syrup, so all looks good so far.

Fanny divides her swiss roll panel into three and build layers of with buttercream filling, before it's all topped off with the glacé icing. Fanny recommends popping the cake into the porch to cool down before the icing covering is added, although I dare say the fridge might do. I think mine might've seized up a little, but it still covers okay. All that's left is a jaunty design with the remaining buttercream and perhaps a walnut or two for decoration, before Fanny fires them off to the waiting office teams. Add in any Christmas decorations you should wish too, of course. For bigger teams, just make more (Fanny states the obvious) and add them together into long lines of cake. Then, be thankful. Do you think the office teams were?

A Very Distinctive Fanny

You should know by now that I am obsessed. Totally and absolutely fixated. Preoccupied some might say. It's okay, you can say it too - it's not really a big secret that I am infatuated with Fanny is it? Madame Cradock is on my mind all the time. She has a grip on my thoughts. She's bewitched, bothered and bewildered me for some time. She has taken over my every waking moment, and truth be told she has dominated my dreams too. She's got her hooks into me and I'm delighted about it!

I love being immersed in her life, her work and her crazy creations. I love reading her words, gazing at her images and second-guessing her thoughts. I love watching her work. Some say I am gripped. Some say possessed. Some say haunted. Some people might even say plagued. For me though it's a joy that I have created for myself. My life and her life were well and truly wound up and wrapped up together enough as it was before this past year, but I have taken the immersion to another level.

I've just completed a Masters course in Gastronomy. Yes, me. It's been a roller-coaster year of lectures, reading, writing and presenting - it's been full-on all about the assignments, assessments and anxieties. All on top of work. Strangely though I've loved it too. And I have survived. Fanny has been my saviour you see, in a strange twist of fate. I seized the chance to spend three months over the summer researching, digging, uncovering, gasping and rejoicing her life. Her real life. She became the focus off my dissertation project.

This was never the plan. She had already crept into every available space of my life, but it appeared that there was no escape. Or perhaps no return. No denial. All my worlds collided at just the right time, and I was offered access to Fanny Cradock's own personal archive. I just can't explain how exciting that was for me. Her contribution to the world has never really been discussed beyond the usual mentions of ballgowns, eyebrows and green potatoes. Until now... Could I do it?

So research in hand, insights noted and somehow all pulled together into a (hopefully) coherent set of 12,000 words for submission, I handed in my work. Then waited. And waited. It seemed like forever waiting on that mark. Had I done Fanny justice? Had I repaid all the kind offers of help and access with something decent? Would anyone find my research as fascinating as I had? Had I just made a Cradock of myself? Well, it turns out that I needn't have worried. My work earned me a Distinction. It's official. I now have a distinctive Fanny. I'm super pleased of course. I'm hoping to publish my research in some shape or form, hoping someone will want to read it! Maybe I should go for a PhD next. After all, what better to top off being a distinctive Fanny than being crowned a Fanny Doctor?

Petite Pyramid Power

From time to time, Fanny Cradock just wants to make something easy. Basic. Manageable. She often labels them 'for beginners' but she equally could say they were 'simple' or 'quick, store cupboard treats'. From time to time, that's exactly what I want to make too. This week was certainly one of those times. I've been away on holiday for a few weeks (did you miss me?) and each day since my return has been a struggle with jet-lag, not aided by the additional time changes back home. A perfect time to keep things simple.

Fanny urges that on weeks just like this, I reach for the comfort of coconut. Desiccated of course. It's something I always seem to have in the cupboard, although I'm never really very sure when I've bought it, or what I've used it for. What is it used for? It may have been nestled in there next to the tins of treacle for ever and ever, it's best not to look at the best before date at times like this, just get on wth the job in hand.

For Fanny, even the most simple of things must be elevated, and discarded coconut is no different. She suggests transforming them into Pyramids, or Les Petites Pyramides, to give them a necessary boost to their self-esteem. She adds caster sugar, vanilla and a choice of eggs to the lonely coconut. To help create the majestic pyramid shape, she adds eggs or egg whites, depending on the texture you prefer in the finished product. Whole eggs, beaten, for a close texture, and unbeaten egg whites if you like it loose and more melting.

Well, I don't know what I prefer in coconut pyramids, but it seems a shame to waste an egg yolk unnecessarily, so I go 'whole'. It's really just a case of mixing it all together. Simple. Straightforward. Uncomplicated. Well, Fanny takes it to another level as you'd imagine by adding some harmless vegetable colouring. Fanny suggests pink, or carmine to be exact, but I'm in the mood for blue, or teal to be exact, and orange personally. I blame the jet-lag. So the mixture is halved and coloured.

Fanny says you can buy 'rather comical' moulds to make the pyramids, but she scoffs at those when your very own hands are more than able to fashion a simple cone shape all by themselves. Besides, you'll only end up spending more time banging them out of the moulds afterwards than you'd ever do in making them by hand. Silly. Ludicrous. Ridiculous. Once you're happy with the shape, pop them into an oven at 350F for 15 minutes and before your very eyes, Les Petits Pyramides will appear and delight. They smell like a long-forgotten childhood memory, and taste simply stunning. So, that must be what coconut is for after all...

As the colours are an almost perfect match for the logo, coincidentally, I'm adding these to this months Treat Petite hosted by Cakeyboi and Baking Explorer. Check out the other treats here and by searching for #TreatPetite across social media.