Viennese Dreams - This Means Nothing To Me

Aspiration. That was what Fanny Cradock was all about. Every television appearance. Every recipe in the booklets. Every magazine interview she gave. Aspiration. She understood that food could be the key to unlocking the otherwise hard-to-climb social ladder. She made everyone feel that by introducing new ideas, combinations and recipes to their otherwise ordinary everyday lives they had some hope of escaping. Changing. Dreaming. Yearning for something that had once seemed completely out of reach.

Pancakes may not immediately spring to mind as the saviour of society, but Fanny had a plan. Her trick was always to take very ordinary ingredients and make them extra-ordinary. Today, television cooks often rely on exotic, new or as-yet undiscovered ingredients. Fanny had eggs and flour. Everyone made pancakes. Hardly anything to shout about, never mind to give you a leg up the ladder of success. Imagine though if you made Austrian pancakes at home. Everyone would be envious. Imagine if they were really more like a cross between crumpets and pancakes. Everyone would be envious. Imagine if they were to be described as 'souffléd'. Everyone would be envious. Stretch your imagination even further and don't even call them pancakes. They are 'puffs'. Everyone would be envious of your Austrian Soufflé Puffs, wouldn't they?

Fanny thought so. She thought transforming two humble eggs, one ounce of flour and one fluid ounce of water would induce a hankering for Vienna at home. She whisked up the egg yolks until they were list and fluffy. She probably got someone else to do this for her, by hand. However I have a passion for my modern mixer at times like these. Next, the flour is whisked in until smooth, followed by the water. In a separate bowl (thank heavens I have two, don't we all?) the whites are beaten until very stiff, before the yolk mixture is gently folded in. The resulting puffy clouds would be happy floating over any well respected opera house.

To elevate them into Austrian Soufflé Puffs however, local chefs are trained to make tricky architectural, cylindrical cuffs from greased parchment paper. Fanny has another idea. Why not make good use of those otherwise discarded tins that we all have filled with Mandarin Oranges that we all enjoy so much. They are the perfect size, and once cleaned and carefully opened and trimmed at both ends are ideal for our Austrian Puffs. Simply brush them lovingly with oil, place on a hot griddle pan ready to dollop your soufflé in. Maybe save a Mandarin segment or two for garnish.

Fanny includes an elaborate pic-strip where Dianne, just 19 and apparently never before tackled these wonders, makes Salzburger Nockerln on a griddle with ease. In the excitement, neither say how long to cook them for, or how to know when they are ready. We are instructed to turn the tins over, with a carefully placed cloth to avoid scalded hands, 'half way through', whenever that might be. Dianne gently eases the Puffs out of the tins and simply dusts them lightly with icing sugar. Perhaps she'd already eaten the Mandarin Oranges. Perhaps she'd suddenly been lifted out of the drudgery of Fanny's kitchen and climbed her own ladder to a more successful life elsewhere. We shall never know. The pancakes, erm crumpets, erm Austrian Soufflé Puffs are light, fluffy and elevated well above the ordinary in any case.

Kugelhopf We Go Again

Fanny strives to set some definitions straight before we go any further, although it's not at all clear why she has waited until this moment to do so. You might be forgiven for thinking it is terms she uses to describe her treatment of the poor old assistants, but no, it is useful terminology for 'yeast work'. So when she talks about scaling, pinning out, proving, knocking back, slapping, kneading and glazing - no enthusiastic helpers have been harmed. Well, we cannot guarantee this 100% of course, but in terms of defining 'yeast work' we can feel slightly reassured.

Mostly the terminology is self explanatory - but that does not deter Fanny from providing clarification. Scale is a 'technical term', Fanny says, for weighing out portions of dough into 'given uniform quantities'. Just in case you wondered. Fanny gets a bit more feisty though with Knock Back... this means to slap down with palms of slightly floured hands on lightly floured surfaces until 'it' (remember she is chatting 'dough' not 'assistant') subsides to about one quarter. You can then Slap and Knead alternately, or as Fanny describes - slip, slap, slip, slap with the palm of one hand and then the other across a minimum 'length' of 12 inches for around a minute. I think we are still chatting dough, but even I'm not sure now.

Fanny puts our newly defined knowledge to good use to make a German, or maybe Austrian, or perhaps Swiss, speciality. In English it doesn't sound so appealing - Yeast Cake - but saying it in German, Austrian or Swiss-ish is so much fun. The Kugelhopf. I imagine the pronunciation is Rose Nylund style. Since Fannys day they have been rebranded as Bundts, but only if you use a tin from a certain producer, which I don't have, so I'll stick with the K-word instead. I'm not sure many of the B-folks make yeasted cakes in theirs though?

Fanny whips up the usual yeast and flour mixture in a warm bowl, adding sugar, salt, vanilla powder (I have a grinder, get me), flaked almonds, lemon zest and raisins. Oh raisins. I don't have any. I do however have glacé cherries, of course I do. So in they go, along with some dried sour cherry powder for extra oomph. Then Fanny adds eggs gradually, and some gently warmed milk to bring it together to a dough. Fanny then leaves it to prove (for which she gives two definitions - one for domestic and one for professional use - which do I choose? Thankfully professionals, we discover, use a proving oven - has she been watching Bake Off? - so that's not an option for me...) for 2 hours to double 'in bulk'. This is a technical term.

Once bulky, all that remains is for it to be shaped - or rather Pinned Out to use the correct term for 'rolling'. Not to mean as you might expect 'against the kitchen cupboards' as in treatment of assistants. Into the Kugelhopf pan, covered and left to prove for one more hour before baking. It. Smells. Amazing. However Fanny has one last technical term to ram home before you rush to get the icing sugar and garnish ready... Hands Off. Fanny insists that you do NOT cut into it until the following day... It's more tortuous than her treatment of any assistant, but worth the wait. The Kuglehopf is a bready cakey joy wherever it hails from, whatever the definition of the pan it's baked in, and however you eat it. Slathered with butter for me. With extra green cherries.

Fanny Cradock goes nuts for an Austrian Nusspudding!

If you haven't guessed it yet, Fanny Cradock loves steamers. For those that haven't quite picked up the hint yet, she quotes herself in the partwork saying "A steamer is to a good cook what a pressure cooker is to an ignorant one". Fanny doesn't like pressure cookers. Her evidence is based on rigorous testing of course, putting them through their paces with a delicate spring chicken. No jokes required. The poor bird emerged from it's pressurised time tasting like a bath sponge. Presumably Fanny tested those too. No moisture was the main complaint - the concentrated flavour of the bird had been 'purged out by pressure'. Fanny says 'stick to your steamer and you will never go wrong" - you might, like me, expect her to follow on with a chicken recipe but the poor spring chicken isn't mentioned again. We just have to take Fannys word for it I suppose. Instead Fanny takes us on an adventure to Austria.

Fanny describes this steamed Nusspudding - or Nut Pudding of course - as a very delicate and really rather super pudding which can be made with any kind of nuts. Fanny recommends hazelnuts or perhaps walnuts but simply can't resist adding in an option 'if you happen to be a millionaire' - pistachios. You just know that Fanny and Johnnie would use pistachios, and feeling like maybe I could aspire to be well-to-do myself that's what I opt for. 

This Austrain delight is made using fine, soft, white breadcrumbs and quite a lot of them. I don't have any fresh, or even nearly fresh, bread to hand, but I do have a ginormous bag of Panko breadcrumbs that I picked up at my local Chinese Supermarket. They were a bargain, hopefully Fanny would approve, especially given the carefree way I went straight to the millionaires choice of pistachios. I reckon they will work here as step one is to cover them in cold water and wring them out in a clean, dry cloth. 

The breadcrumbs really form the base of the pudding, there's no added flour after that. Fanny gets me to 'set to' beating up the butter until it's fluffy, creaming in some caster sugar and then adding in separated egg yolks and spoonfuls of soaked crumbs in small quantities. After they've all been beaten in well, add the freshly 'milled' pistachios. I whizzed mine up in the food processor. The last addition is the egg whites whisked to very stiff peaks and gently folded in. It's actually looking and feeling like a soufflé at this stage.

Fanny must've been thinking the same, as she suggests steaming this one in a soufflé dish. Usual steaming rules apply - oiled papers first then cover with foil. I am taking Fannys advice here too and making a 'strap' out of foil to allow me to easily remove it once steamed. I'm improvising a little here and just using a large saucepan with a wee terracotta dish in the bottom as my steamer. The covered soufflé dish sits on the dish surrounded by gently steaming water, perfect. Fanny gives two top tips - do not peek at it once it's in or it will result in a hollow pud, and don't for some reason bang the steamer down on the kitchen table once done, or it will all go wrong. I'm guessing either one of the assistants did this, or some poor soul who wrote in to tell Fanny her recipe failed. So, advice noted and some three hours later - Fanny never pretended steaming is quick - I lift the pudding out, unwrap it and carefully turn it out. It looks glorious, cuts well and tastes great! If your purse will still stretch to it, Fanny says to serve it with a rich hot chocolate sauce. Mmm, those Austrians know a thing or two about puddings.