Feeling Fruity for my Fourth Fanniversary

Do you remember what you were doing four years ago? It's not something I generally spend a lot of time wondering. Mostly it would just be an ordinary day, doing ordinary things, in ordinary ways. However, I remember very clearly what happened four years ago for me. It was no ordinary day, and no ordinary day has occurred ever since. It changed my life. Four years ago, I wrote my first blog post.

I have no idea what I expected to happen on that day, other than I would sit down, type my thoughts down about dear old Fanny and hit 'publish'. For me, it was always about having fun, celebrating Fanny and making myself giggle. If anyone else read it that'd be a bonus. Well, four years on, it's been, and continues to be, all those things and so much more. I've loved every minute, hour, and day since then. I think I've grown to love Fanny even more too. I find myself sticking up for her a lot, we've become firm friends. I mean, I've yet to whack an assistant or pee in my plant pots, but, well, I think she's mostly great.

Whether you've read all two hundred and fifty two of these posts, or this is your first, I totally appreciate it and hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks! Readers, tweeters and bloggers have come and gone and come back again. Some have disappeared forever. Where did they go? I miss them! It's been a whirlwind of harmless green vegetable food colouring and aspic, but you know what, everything so far has worked out. People tell me all the time 'oh yeah, but Fanny couldn't cook' or 'gawd, her recipes are terrible, inedible, aren't they?'... I've just found them to be incredible. Well, not especially the Eggs in Aspic, but more often than not!

Her signature 'thing' seems to be taking something which is not very much and making it seem like it's something really special. That can't be bad can it? Like taking an egg or two, a few plums, some milk and a dash of caster sugar and creating a dessert to make you smile? It's one of Fanny's favourites, meringue. She suggests making it in a 'complicated' shape for which she gives 'complicated' instructions which just seems too 'complicated' for me. Her shape is basically four circles joined together. I think after four years together I can go a bit freeform with mine, and dare I say it it, 'better'?

Instead of circles I whip up the meringues following Fanny's technique, and fashion a suitable 4-shaped design on baking parchment. If Fanny has taught me anything over the years, it's to pipe, pipe, pipe, so I do. Fanny says it might look as if it demands skill from the cook, but it doesn't. The meringue case bakes in around an hour, and emerges looking somewhat tanned. Fanny's meringues always do, I don't know why. Someone will. Fanny fills her case with confectioners custard made from the yolks, and then tops with poached plum halves. It feels like a fitting celebration of our four years together. In wedding anniversary terms, four years is Fruit, apparently. Will you join me and Fanny for four more? I do hope so - there is so much more Fanny Fun to come!

A Whack of Leather - Our Third Fanny-versary!

Three really is a magic number, but sometimes it feels a little overlooked. I mean everyone likes a 'first' don't they? Nothing better. The Winner! The Original! The Pioneer! Second feels like a real achievement, having kept going and 'done it again', still pretty good compared to first. Third though, it's a bit like, okay, that's great. A kind of 'well done' but also a 'what's for tea' kind of celebration really. So, it may just be me, but today I am shouting it loud and cheering (for myself) as Fanny and I celebrate a terrific three years together. Aw. That's 'leather' in anniversary terms... Oh. Best move on.

Three years! You may not have been reading along from the very beginning (erm, but now I think of it, what not?), but that's a lot of weird and whacky recipes, a lot food colouring and a lot of mentions of poor, down-trodden assistants getting into hot water for not following instructions. That's probably where the leather comes in - a quick whack with a belt? It's also three years of learning new techniques, uncovering new flavour combinations and generally having a real laugh. Every day. That's not bad going is it? With Fanny watching over me. Every day. I don't think I've done anything deserving of a good belting. Yet.

I must distract Fanny's mind from leather. Fortunately Fanny has just the thing in mind for 'our' celebration - a three tired cake. Okay, so she's got her celebrations a little mixed up, but it's the thought that counts isn't it? She remembered! Her idea is to make a three tiered wedding cake, perfect for a June bride. She did love a good wedding, whether in June or not. She even had a fake one or two along the way, often more than one at the same time, and never really much clarity on who was married to whom, but we're not being judge-y today of all days, it's a day to celebrate.

Fanny suggests her tried and tested Christmas Cake (is it too early to mention?) for the three tiered triumph. We've made it before, together of course, but never in triplicate. Fanny informs us that the base layer is to be cut and eaten on the wedding day. The second layer should be stored away to celebrate the First Anniversary, or if we are more ambitious, and have blooming good storage, the Silver Wedding Anniversary. The Third and final tier is intended to celebrate the birth of the first child. I fear that Fanny may be waiting quite some time for that particular celebration. Maybe a sacrificial leathering is the best option after all.

So, it's a spicy, fruity, slightly boozy cake fest in June. Once all three cakes are mixed up and baked, Fanny urges us to move swiftly onto the decoration. Almond Paste followed by Royal Icing is essential as a starting point. She advises that it is best to practice decoration on an entirely irrelevant cake that you just happen to have lying around. This is what she makes Johnnie do. Poor Johnnie, it keeps him occupied. He decorates the bottom layer with stars. I, on the other hand, do not have any irrelevant cakes, or indeed any that hang about too long, but I am always applying the knowledge that wise old Fanny gives me. So I know cakes should be blue. Mix the two together and surely this is the ultimate Third Fanny-versary cake? The big question is, will we still be together for the next five years of Fanny Fun required to compete the Cookery Programme? Our next Fanny-versary is the much more suitable Fruit and Flowers, so don't be scared...

It's My Fanny-versary!

Two years. Two whole years that Fanny Cradock has completely taken over enriched my life as I've enhanced taken over her Cookery Programme in this blog. In some ways it feels like I only started yesterday, while in other moments it does feel that I've been recreating weird and wonderful Cradock creations for ever. It has been twenty four months of fun, laughter and at times, let's be honest, horror at some of the things I've been making with Fannys guidance. I wouldn't swap a day of it though, I've enjoyed almost all each and every one of the 1,051,200 minutes.

To celebrate this two year Fanny-versary, Fanny has the perfect Chocolate Sponge Gâteau, which she strangely translates as Biscuit au Chocolat. After one hundred and four weeks together, nothing surprises me, least of all the exclusive questionable French translations. Fanny is part French you know. Fanny refers to it as a 'simple' sponge, made using the genoise method of whipping eggs and sugar together until they are voluminous. Fanny uses her beloved sweetened drinking chocolate to flavour the sponge, sifting it with her equally beloved self-raising flour and gently folding it into the well risen egg and sugar mix.

Fanny adds a little melted butter to the mix, presumably to make it lavish and luxurious. Fanny says it should be softened butter, which might suggest room temperature, but her instructions are to stir it in, so I use my common sense well trained initiative and melt it first. Fanny and I are becoming one and the same horrifically attuned as the months roll past it seems, I can translate her unique strange language and instructions with ease. Mostly. I even manage a little smirk to the imaginary camera while I cook and wrinkle my nose softly while giving any assistant brave enough to come close an almighty wallop.

Fanny bakes her special sponge in a square six inch tin. I don't have a square one that small, so substitute for a perfect serviceable round one, which is six inches diameter. Buttered with a greaseproof circle in the base and floured, naturally. The cake bakes for only 35 minutes before emerging all light and springy from the oven. For everyday situations, Fanny recommends her most lazy favourite of servings - a simple dusting of icing sugar, very thick. Hides everything. Hang on though, this is a very special occasion, so what does Fanny suggest to mark seven hundred and thirty long happy days together?

The answer I am sure you are all screaming is Mocha Buttercream, piped into tiny rosettes with a small star nozzle. This is always the answer. Except today, I am switching things up with three flavours of buttercream - rose, chocolate and vanilla - hey, it's my Fanny-versary and I'll vary if I want to. Fanny completes her decoration with chocolate leaves, dredged through pickings from her rose bush in the garden. Mine are pre-dredged and perfectly formed from Coco, I am sure Fanny would be raging wouldn't mind a shortcut. She better hadn't as we have a long way to go on our journey up the culinary ladder together. Two years has brought us only a quarter of the way, I do hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have so far? Will you be joining me for the remaining six years (gulp) up the giddy heights of the Cradock Cookery Programme? I have to warn you however that things get even more weird and wonderful spectacular as we progress...