Don't Question the Digestion Suggestion

Fanny has taken an unexpected few weeks off. Not, as you might assume, to travel to fabulous places, rest and eat fabulous food. No, she's been furiously checking over and analysing what she has shown us so far, and has been actively making forward plans for future culinary adventures. She does deserve a break in all fairness. She's been beavering away for the past forty-three weeks solidly producing weekly magazines entirely for our benefit (ok, and for significant financial gain) stuffed full of recipes and ideas to free us from the shackles of domestic drudgery. By making certain we never leave the kitchen.

The reason for this slight pause in proceedings is to ensure that the next half of the part-work is as thrilling as the first. Yes, we are half-way through, by Fanny's calculations. It may have taken Fanny almost a year of non-stop whipping, beating and piping, but it's taken me close to four years. Fanny thinks we're only just beginning to master the basics. Fanny originally planned the part-work to be a glorious technicolour collection of ninety-six. Little did she realise that it would come to a premature end rather abruptly after a more modest eighty. So, in reality, I'm well past half-way, by my calculations. I do often wonder what would be found in those missing sixteen parts, but perhaps that's a concern for another day.

Today, we must focus on observing how the old and familiar and the new and unfamiliar not only start coming together very closely but at the same time lay down fresh foundations for further, forward adventures. The old and familiar Fanny has in mind are digestive biscuits. The new and unfamiliar is making them into a fancy, French-style flan. Fanny does not think the word Tart is suitable for polite company, either in the kitchen or the bedroom. Except here, her Biscuit Based Fruit Flan is also called Tarte aux Fruits d'Eté. Ooo-la-la.

She bashes the biscuits to crumbs, thinking no doubt about someone that she never really liked very much with every mighty blow. She adds melted butter and presses the thick paste 'of moulding consistency' into a flan ring, moulding it into a flan shape. It's a flan you see. While it chills in ordinary domestic refrigeration, she whips up some very thick confectioners' custard to cover the base with, followed by any choice of berry that your heart should desire. Simple. Just a bit of a glaze with a suitable fruit jelly (I use my homemade Bramble) and it's all done.

Fanny hasn't wasted any time on this recipe, proposing instead that we 'repair our memory gaps' on the absolute basic techniques so that we have them at our finger tips for the journey ahead. I think she means, please take some time to read back over my previous blog posts. Thanks Fanny for the plug. We will soon be trying hundreds of new things, and we must be able to depend on the basics. If our foundations are secure, there will be no limit to the magnificent confections which we will be able to achieve working together. I'm excited, and appreciate the opportunity to tuck into this tasty tart(e) in anticipation meantime as I segue gracefully from 'basic' to 'advanced' in the capable hands of Fanny. Are you by my side?

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.

Dont boak, it's only Gwen Troake!

Fanny Cradock never cooked with Gwen Troake, not surprising after judging her nauseating banquet menu so harshly, claiming her ideas were 'too rich' and just plainly not suitable for presentation at a professional level. For Fanny, the end of a long career on TV, for Gwen it resulted in her first, and only cookbook, endorsed by Esther Rantzen. Esther said that the nation became either pro-Troake or pro-Cradock following the showdown, but my guess is that the only winner was the book publisher, who presumably shifted a fair few copies of plainly unprofessional Gwen's Country Cookbook.

The main ingredient that made Fanny pull faces as if she was holding back a substantial slew of slurried spew was the humble Bramble. Fanny claimed on TV not to even know what one was, and continued her bile-laden disgust at Gwen for even suggesting that it would make a suitable sauce to be served with Duck at the banquet the Big Time show was built around. Game old Gwen simply chuckled at Fanny's vitriolic vomit and carried on regardless. No-one else really seemed to like her recipes, but somehow they made it into her book. This must've made Fanny retch even more.

The Bramble Sauce recipe is a peculiar one indeed. Gwen simmered Brambles in plain water for around 15 minutes before straining and pushing them through a sieve. The pulp was discarded, and the juice thickened first of all with that staple of all 70's sauces, cornflour, and then with a very un-Fanny ingredient. Shop bought lemon jelly. Fanny would heave. Gwen adds sugar to make it even sweeter, a little salt and a splash of red wine, presumably for refinement. I can see why Fanny remained on the point of gagging. Especially as an accompaniment for a savoury main course. Perhaps it was meant to be regurgitated for dessert?

In her quest to extend our rice repertoire, Fanny makes some sweet fritters and suggests serving them with 'your favourite jam sauce'. Hmmm. I bet she never thought anyone would dare to recreate Gwens creation though. I'm wicked. I know. Shoot me. Fanny binds together cold, cooked rice with an egg, some ground almonds, sugar and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. She shapes them into little rissoles and fries them very gently in olive oil (from the chemist) until they are a nice brown colour. They don't really look like a dessert, more of a chicken nugget type of a thing, or dare I say a duck-nugget should such a thing even exist?

The resulting modern day 'collaboration' between Fanny and Gwen is a slightly more convivial combination. The crunchy, slightly sweetly spicy but otherwise plain rice 'fritters' are given a new lease of life with the overly sweet, citrusy Bramble jam sauce, which is thick and gloopy. I find myself dipping the fritters into it as if it were ketchup (not that I've ever actually eaten ketchup, the thought of it truly makes me heave) in a way that would probably increase Fannys revulsion. Perhaps they should've written a cookbook together, partly for professionals and partly for the public, instead of bickering their way into the history books. Gwen's Brambles may not have appealed to Fanny, and may have never appeared again in such a form on any table - professional banquet or otherwise. Fanny's guidance may have provoked less of a joke, croaking more a masterstroke than a choke, and revoked both their futures from hurtling towards broke. That's all folks...