Curl Up and Dye

Some retro touches from the past remain exclusively in the olden days. They never get revived. There's no rhyme nor reason for it, just overlooked I suppose. Or forgotten. Perhaps the skills have left us. Perhaps the will has gone. Perhaps the tools were gifted to the local charity shop in haste. Fanny's personal favourite retro touch is of course the garnish, exclusively for presentation. It's the ultimate. So much so that she often sets 'the young ones' to learn the techniques with tables full of basic ingredients to be embellished with the very simplest of tools. If one of the tools missing from your own kitchen drawer is the humble butter curler, you'd best make a dash to that charity shop and retrieve it immediately...

I can't remember the last time I saw curled butter. Fortunately for me, I happen to have a butter curler to hand, from a failed attempt to recreate Fanny's gloriously green Brandy Butter 'tree' for Christmas. I clearly need additional practice. I'm sure Fanny would sit me down at the table and set me to work on an endless mountain of butter crying out to be curled and loved if she could. Fanny being Fanny doesn't settle JUST for curled butter of course. Why would you when you could have curled BUTTERCREAM to lift your cake from the ordinary to the extraordinary in a few gentle strokes?

Fanny says to make a standard batch of her basic buttercream. Version 1. Naturally, she has several variations. Version 1 is butter whipped up all softly and creamily, with twice the amount of icing sugar blended in. Normally she adds an egg yolk too, for good measure and perhaps for a touch of colour. Normally I would add one too. Normally however I would take extra care NOT to drop the yolk, which I had just rescued from the white, down the kitchen sink... Normally it wouldn't be the last egg in my house. Normally I would worry endlessly about this, but nothing about this venture is normal anyway. As is normal with Fanny, icing and cakes, a massive burst of colour is involved anyway...

Fanny splits her buttercream into two and colours each a tasteful shade. Fanny has taught me to go one better in every walk of life, so three colours for me! Once tinted, the buttercream needs to be shaped into, err, well butter shapes and popped back in the fridge to harden up. This is not normal for buttercream. Fanny explains that this is an invention of a nameless Farmer's Wife from the nineteenth century. She made her own butter, and enjoyed shaping it using her butter curlers. She apparently also liked to colour it up and set it on top of her cakes. She didn't have a fridge naturally, but did have a stone slab in the dairy to keep her handiwork cool... Hmmm, I wonder if Fanny is simply just making this story fit her own fiendish plans. Either way, we must salute the anonymously curly Farmer's Wife for her buttery endeavours.

The Farmer's Wife uses her butter curler to scrape curls of buttercream which she then arranges on top of a freshly baked cake in an amusing pattern. Fanny did the same in her honour. I did too, although I used one of the many White Christmas Cakes I made before the festive season using Fanny's fabulous formula. The colourful insides now matches the colourful garnish. The cake has a kind of crocheted feel to it, reminiscent of a tea-cosy. I clearly need more practice with the curler. Surely, however, Fanny would be pleased? Perhaps not. One type of garnish Fanny does NOT subscribe to is that used by Italian pastry cooks. She seems to take issue with all things Italian. For Fanny, nothing is more 'potent for putting you off' your food that all the colours being too bright, especially when they are 'swirled and curled up together'. Make your mind up Fanny. Bright orange, green (luckily I would never use green for icing, always blue) and, god forbid, another colour, makes for a 'horrifying, brash appearance' which is off-putting in the extreme. I feel well and truly 'told off'. Excuse me while I slink off to the corner, curl up and hide... I'm taking a massive slice of cake with me though. Welcome to the New Year...

Which Witches 'Wich

Fanny Cradock really was one of a kind. A unique kind of cookery writer, her books and recipes are certainly not like those by anyone else. Ever. Let's test it out. Take a wander over to your bookshelf. Stare hard at your collection. Let your eyes gaze over the titles and think deeply about the recipes contained within. Concentrate. Can you recall any of the books containing recipes that you would 'only serve to your most detested female enemy in moments of extreme rage'? Recipes that were supposedly the 'most horrific' in the world? Let me know if I'm wrong, but I reckon it's only in one of Fanny's volumes that you'll find just that.

In this fairly unique start, even for Fanny, to part 32 looking at Sweet and Savoury Sandwiches, the focus is first of all upon Danish Open Sandwiches. After all, Fanny says, the Danes have some of the best pastry cooks in the world, have Sandwich Houses and apparently the sandwich servers wear leather aprons. What's not to like? The sandwich selection is enormous, around five hundred different possibilities, all offered 'by the yard'. So naturally you'd choose one that that you absolutely one hundred percent detested, served only to those who disgust you even more, to showcase here.

Fanny chooses Danish Open Sandwiches to 'widen our basic arc of thinking' when we consider sandwiches. At the lowest possible sandwich level is the national loaf, sold frequently from the deep freeze, wrapped up in the modern equivalent of mackintosh knickers and pre-sliced. Always tasting like inner soles. Fanny isn't a fan. It is possible to progress though, Fanny recommends French bread, rye bread, black bread, brioches and pumpernickel. Even diet 'biscuits', but not Ryvita. They taste like minced straw mattresses apparently. We'll perhaps have to take Fannys word for that one.

Fanny's final slimming tip is to make your sandwiches with a Cambridge Loaf, which has enabled Fanny to maintain her waistline at the same measurement that it was 20 years previously, even after becoming a mother and grandmother. Allegedly. If you make any 'off' comments about Fanny's waistline, then beware, it will be this sandwich that is served to you. Fanny calls it a Jansen's Temptation, but when I google that it seems to be a Swedish casserole of potato and onions. Fanny won't have mixed up her Nordic countries by any chance and surely knows her smørrebrød from her smörgåsbord?

She lets us know that Danish people themselves do not think sandwiches are even worth eating unless they contain the same amount of butter as bread, so bang goes the diet. This particular horror is topped with another thick layer of blue cheese. It should be Danish of course. And then smothered with raspberry jam. I can think of many, many worse things to spread on a slice of bread to serve to my most hated enemy, female or not, in moments of extreme rage, than butter, some lovely blue cheese and fruity jam. Fanny never divulges just who that nasty woman was, or what she did to upset her so. She does nonetheless suggest serving the sandwich with a spicy snifter of spirited Snaps in an attempt to salvage the situation. My only wish is that Fanny had produced a whole cookbook stuffed with recipes for people you despise. Meanwhile, Skål.

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...

Voulez-Vent, ah-ha!

Fanny is all puffed up in the kitchen today. Even more so than usual. It's not her ego that's inflated on this occasion, but rather her classical culinary knowledge that has that 'bloated' feeling. She's bursting with joy to lead us towards a very steep but satisfying step on her 'culinary ladder' to master once and for all the particular pleasure that is perfect puff pastry. It also allows dear old Fanny to drop a few names and Michelin stars into the mix as she recounts the tale of how the greatest of all pastry pastes, pâte feuilleté, came into being. Ideal.

Fanny tells us that French chefs split hairs over it and dispute minuscule variations on its handling. Just a warning. So, we are so very fortunate that Fanny spent some time in the cool, sunny kitchen in Les Baux of Le Roi de Feuilletage (the English translation of the King of Puff Pastry doesn't quite do it justice) himself, the three-Michelin starred M. Raymond Thuillier. Nestled in the troglodyte hills and caves of the remote village, with caves that you could drive a London Bus into if you should ever posses one, apparently, they were also joined by the famous French artist M. Bernard Buffet. What a perfectly named celebrity for such a lover of home entertaining as Fanny.

The honourable Frenchmen shared the tale, as well as the skill, of the puff pastry with Fanny, who in turn shares it with us. Splendid. In a Paris restaurant in the eighteenth century a young junior chef was ordered to make a batch of butter pastry. All seemed well, as the youngster make quick work of it, and put the paste to store in the cool cave for a few days until required. It was only then that, with horror, he realised he had forgotten the butter. So he whipped out the fatless paste, slapped the butter in the middle, rolled it out, rolled it again and again until the butter was not visible and returned it to the coolness of the cave. No-one would know.

When the chef demanded his pastry, the young boy gave it to him but began to tremble with fear, in a way that Fanny surely recognised well from a very similar and constant reaction by her own assistants, as it was rolled out, glazed and baked in the oven. No-one at that time expected to see it reach several inches in height with paper-thin layers. The chef demanded to know what the youngster had done, and instead of walloping him with a wooden spoon when he confessed, he kissed him and shouted 'C'est magnifique! C'est feuilletage!' Fanny would never have done that...

Fanny recreates the magnificence for us in a glorious pic-strip. She makes a ring of self-raising flour on a cold marble surface, while squeezing every drop of moisture from her butter in a double layer of muslin. Half the butter is chopped into small cubes and rubbed into the flour, then the juice of a lemon (Yes! Lemon Juice!) with very cold water added and scissored in with two knives to make a paste. Only touch the paste directly after you have held your hand under a running cold tap for as long as you can stand it. Once chilled, roll into a rectangle. The remaining butter is shaped into an oblong, folded in the centre, turned, rolled and folded again. Chill for 30 minutes in ordinary domestic refrigeration and repeat 5 times. A pillow of pleated puff.

For Fanny, the first thing to do with the puff is naturally the buffet-tastic classic, Vol-Au-Vent. She uses metal cutters dipped into boiling water before use for large circles, and smaller cutters cut only three-quarters way through the paste for the centre piece, which then makes the top. Always dipped into boiling water first. Baked on a wetted tray and majestically risen, they are perfect filled with mushrooms cooked with soured cream. Fanny may not have had any stars or accolades of her own, but with these little crowns I hereby pronounce her La Reine de la Pâte, or more simply perhaps, The Queen of Puff.

Fanny's Garden - Get Fresh (at the weekend)

Eating fresh, eating local and eating seasonally all seems to make sense, but yet it is something we seem to have lost the know-how to do well. A bit like wearing our Sunday Best. Fanny was as keen as a locally smoked kipper to make sure we all chomped on fresh, local and in season produce - as well as in every imaginable colour. She even produced a handy wall-hanging to pop into our kitchens to remind us what was in season month-by-month. I'll pass on the John Dory, Duckling and Guinea Fowl she recommends for April. Not to be dismayed, she has LOTS of vegetable suggestions too. So, when fellow foodie and full-on Fanny fan, the lovely Jillian from Fresh Food Express sent me a huge box stuffed full of vegetables and other goodies, with a challenge to make some seasonal treats, I only had to skip into the kitchen and think 'What Would Fanny Do'? Well, ok, in all honesty it's all I ever think. And I always skip. Always.

It was all a little lot like Ready, Steady, Cook! as I opened up the carefully packaged parcel... My box was bulging. Veggies and fruit galore from Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm in Fife, my favourite hand churned butter (Mrs Millar had clearly been busy), Arbroath honey, pickles, Arbroath roasted coffee and even some resurrected Scottish Heritage grain flours - Beremeal and Peasemeal - shockingly not from Arbroath. The big question would be, would I end up with Red Tomato on my face or as glad as a Green Pepper? Or was it the other way round? I can always blame Fanny if it all goes horribly wrong, can't I?

Beremeal is something I've tried before, following a memorable but sadly brief jaunt to foodie-heaven Orkney last year. I've been making traditional recipes like bannocks and scones, but wondered, would it make a nice pastry? It has quite a distinctive, nutty taste of days gone by. I used some of the expertly patted, expertly melted butter and a little hot water to bring the flour together to a dough, and lined some mini brioche tins. I fancied a nice deep tart. Well, who doesn't? Sorry, I know it's flan, Fanny despised the use of the word 'tart' in the kitchen, and in the bedroom. It took a bit of coaxing and patching into the tins but then baked blind well. I made Fanny's Leek Tart Flan filling - simply some gently cooked leeks from the box with beaten eggs, a little cream, cheese, and seasoning. Baked again, they turned out, well, just like Fannys (might've). The pastry turned out kind of like a savoury ancestral biscuit in texture and taste.

Fanny would of course always and every time think of a buffet as the answer to delight all. The contents of the oh-so-welcome box just shout Fanny's Garden to me - some of her classic vegetable accompaniments to be clear. I'm not sure what those dedicated organic farmers would reckon to their potatoes being gently steamed, mashed, coloured green and piped into proud peaks to resemble  'trees' (be polite, we all know what we are all really thinking)? The courgettes also get steaming, before being stuffed with breadcrumbs and cheese, and baked. Same for the onions, but they are simmered in gently boiling water first. Then give them a good stuffing. Fanny normally says NEVER to cook vegetables in this way of course. Never boil. Except for this dish, seemingly.

Every display Fanny ever turned her hand to had a few elements of bonkers-ness whimsy. So what better occasion than to trot out her lovely lemon pig creation? Oink. Just a couple of cloves studded for eyes, cocktail sticks for feet and a slither of peel from it's rather considerable underside (I'm already imagining it is real) cut to form ears and a wiggly tail. Fanny never had a carrot sharpener to my knowledge, but the one I have does make gorgeous edible flowers for decoration. Fanny would no doubt spend hours getting Johnnie to work on hers. One of the blood oranges from the box becomes a basket, naturally. Every display should have a basket. Ever the seasonal-freak I've also been foraging recently for Wild Garlic, which made a lovely butter to go with everything. So, do I win? Will Ainslie Harriet say I've done well? It's seasonal, stuffed with Scottish produce and fresh. And brightly coloured. Surely the lemon pig is worth a prize on it's own.

Fresh Food Express sent me this box of goodies to play with, and they would also like to send you something similarly seasonal - all you have to do is enter using the Rafflcopter thingy-ma-jig below, leave a comment on this blog post and gain a few extra entries while you are at it! Don't panic, you don't have to colour your potatoes green. Fresh Food Express will send you your prize directly, if the Rafflecopter thingy-ma-jig selects you as the winner. Ready, Steady, Fanny On! (UK entries only folks)

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Ces Croissants Ne Sont Pas Français

Fanny Cradock has a canny knack of convincing us that almost everything is perfectly French, even when it clearly isn't, including her own questionable heritage. Just by saying it, or writing it, it becomes true, n'est-ce pas? I mean, who could possibly cross-check these things back in the day? However for once Ma Chérie Fanny takes something which we all (possibly) would imagine to be so utterly French through and through and lets us know in no uncertain terms that it is not. We are wrong. Bien sûr. Croissants are most definitely NOT French. Non madam.

How silly of us to not know our history. Especially when it comes to cold yeasted dough. Especially when the true story is 'such a pretty one', according to Fanny. Croissants were of course created by the bakers of Budapest in 1686. During a siege on the city by the Turks when their forces surrounded the city walls, the guards on the parapets fell asleep one night. Fanny doesn't bother to explain why. The bakers were of course still awake and baking, as usual. The bakers heard strange noises and awoke the guards, thereby driving back the Turks. The next day it was hailed that as a reward for the bakers saving the city a new bread was to be created. Inspiration was taken from the crecents on the sleeves of the Turks' ottomans, and hence Croissants were born. Naturellement.

Fanny wants to continue on her myth busting way by convincing us that croissants are also easy to make, real croissants that is. Fanny says that is 'nonsense' that they take 8 hours to make and can be easily made even in cold environments. Even when there is a draught in the kitchen, or a door is left open it makes not a halfpenny of a difference. They need no proving. Yes, that's what Fanny says. Just whip up the dough, which can then be left in the fridge for up to 7 days, prepare the croissants, slip them into the oven for 13 or 14 minutes while you make tea or coffee and do the rest of your breakfast chores if you have guests. Remember Fanny is not too keen on weekend guests. Ou quelqu'un.

Fanny gets going by cutting some flour into butter with two knives, sharing it into an oblong and chilling it in the fridge. Fresh yeast (which I love) is mixed with some sugar to liquefy and then a beaten egg while you make a mound of flour on your work surface. Fanny doesn't specify which kind of flour to use, but she always says to use self raising for everything, so I do. The liquid is poured into the mound and gently mixed to a dough, without breaking the flour rim until it is thick enough. Fanny them simply slaps it from side to side until its smooth and picks up all the remaining flour. Sounds like her treatment of the poor assistants. Quelle surprise.

With the chilled butter in the centre, the dough is folded over, spun round, rolled out gently (Fanny notices you should see small bubbles on the surface, I do, meaning the yeast is waking up, springy and light), turned and folded again, and again, and again until a lovely parcel is created. I decide to store it in the fridge until weekend guests arrive. Fanny rolls out her dough to a quarter inch thick and uses a complicated triangular wooden template to cut out shapes to be rolled as croissants. I go more freehand with a pizza cutter. Look, it's Sunday morning and I am still asleep. Curled, egg washed and in the oven. Once baked they are golden and crisp, a little bobbly but maybe that's because I stored the dough for a few days. They don't look all that French, but do look a little like croissants, but a little more like little crabs - luckily I can tell my guests I am trying out an old authentic 17th century Budapest pastry recipe to distract them... Je suis si vilain.

So Waffley Versatile

Fanny Cradock closes this part by blabbering on about a very particular tool of the trade. Luckily for me I bought a vintage, Italian one very recently, in perfectly unused condition, and I've been looking for an excuse to try it out! The stove-top Waffle Iron is not something I'd have expected Fanny to be blethering about, but as ever she is full of surprises. It's a lovely shiny piece of kitchen kit, I wonder how readily available they were back in Fannys time? Not that that would concern her of course, she'd continue to twaddle on about them before striking a deal with the importers and adding them to her catalogue...

I'm also not sure how well known or how popular waffles themselves were outside of the States. Not that that would stop Fanny babbling about them.These are obviously not the potato ones which became staples of the 80's tea times, but the ones more like biscuits and rolled into cones if you were fancy. Fanny was. Fanny gives them their French translation to boost their appeal - she chats about Les Gaufres Amèricaines.

Fanny starts her batter banter by combining perfectly ordinary (don't tell Wrights) self-raising flour with both bicarbonate of soda and baking powder in a roomy bowl. As the butter melts quietly on the stove, a beaten egg is dropped in and blended with a little milk until it makes a thick, springy dough. The remaining milk is very gradually but steadily beaten in too, once the dough is fairly smooth, and finally the butter, preferably with a trusty wooden spoon. The batter goes very glossy after this addition, and is worth the extra palaver.

Fanny prattles on with very particular instructions for the waffle iron. It needs to heated perfectly dry on both sides, over a low flame, which can be done while making the batter. When the batter is ready to go, brush the insides of the iron with a little melted butter or oil (or even better still with saindoux seemingly) or if like me you are feeling modern, spray some oil over the surfaces. Fanny says it must be very hot, and must smoke viciously and sizzle. Indeed it does. She plops a dollop of batter on while still over a moderate heat and spreads it out before closing the iron. I tried that, but it slid around a lot, so I just plonked it on and closed them, squidging the batter evenly.

Fanny's chatter is that if you overdo things and plop on too much batter it will escape out the sides, oozing and bubbling, so always have a clean, small knife to hand to cut it free. This turns out to be top advice until I get used the particular amounts for my iron. Fanny's final ramble of advice is to turn the iron over before checking if the first side is golden and cooked, and finishing off the underside. The waffles should never look a rather disconsolate beige. The finished waffles look great, crisp up once cooled and while warm wrap around the spindly thing that came with it to make (sort of) cones. My ice-cream would perhaps dribble from the bottom, but Fanny recommends serving simply with Maple Syrup and butter anyway. So I can dribble away quite happily while I gabble on about how great the waffle iron is...

An Orgy of Hors D'oeuvres

Fanny turns her experienced hand to Hors D'oeuvres for part 23. Well, simple winter hors d'oeuvres to begin with, pitched at beginners. More experienced hors d'oeuvres will come later. First of all Fanny wants to get something off her chest that has been bothering her. It's the Americans. They've upset Fanny by referring to hors d'oeuvres by the revoltingly inaccurate name 'Starters'. Don't the Americans know any French? Their proper name derives from 'en dehors du menu' - or outside the menu - and should correctly be 'fiddled-with savoury bits entirely separated from meals at a table which titilate your taste-buds beforehand.' No fiddling-with should occur at the table. Got it.

It's not just the Americans, Fanny is also scolding those Scandinavian scallywags who, according to her, got there 'hooks on the theme and ran it ragged' with Smørrebrød or Smörgasbörd. Fanny warns that Scandi travellers have long been left with their pants down (gastronomically) at parties when they are led to the table gorged to the gunwales for the grub proper. They find out the hard way not to blow-out on the reckless and bacchanalian Borgian Orgy. No pants down at the table. Got it.

Thanks heavens for the French, who Fanny notes (as ever) sort things out for us all. They are 'ever practical' on these matters, realising that there is economy and nourishment in a first course à la table largely composed of vegetables. They are the ones responsible for cutting down on the consumption of costly main courses with hors d'oeuvres as we know them today. Only frugal French sprees, diet-friendly debauchery and mighty merrymaking are acceptable at the table. Got it.

Fanny informs us that throughout France hors d'oeuvres feature on both home and restaurant luncheon menus, this being the main meal of the day for civilised folks. A true Frenchman will devote up to two hours of his day 'stoking himself up', safeguarding his teeth with the civilised practice of using a toothpick and then relaxing afterwards before returning to his work. Whether he's a roadmender or a muscular and tattooed lorry driver, he will be eating hors d'oeuvres we do not recognise in this country. Stoke up any muscle-bound French, tattooed workers then repose before getting back to it. Got it.

Maybe with Liptauer Cheese from Austria perhaps? Not very French at all, but Fanny insists is so very easy, and for beginners this is essential. It is immensely popular in Austria and was given to Fanny by an Austrian friend. So it's definitely Austrian. It's essentially butter whipped up with cream cheese with paprika, mustard and carraway seeds added. I add onion seeds though. Fanny also adds capers and anchovies. Eurgh. Once blended they need to be shaped into a rectangle and decorated with pretzels round the edge. Pretzels should be also handed separately too, to encourage dipping. If not a French fling, over-indulge by whipping an Austrian quickly. Got it.

Fannys Firenze Frenzy

Fanny was a very well respected (at least that's what she said) travel correspondent before she transformed herself into a cookery writer and TV Chef. She'd scribble about anything if she got paid in reality, but she loved gadding about, dashing off columns and banging out books mainly about aspirational but perhaps achievable European travel from 1950's onwards. With Johnnie by her side, she selfishly packed up her trunk and toured round for the Bon Viveur Guide to Holidays in Europe. It was the TripAdvisor of its time. She invented it - they were the original Judith Chalmers and Michael Palin. Fanny just loved to get away, especially to Italy and in particular to Florence.

Notwithstanding, Fanny warned that Florence, despite it's 'gay friendliness', explosion of floral displays and people who were 'incredibly interested in your well-being' (did she mean overly nosey?), had 'climatic conditions' which produced heat that even the Romans considered intense. Well-to-do Italians flocked there for the winter. The travel guide, like many today, gives average temperatures year round, but Fanny introduces a new comparison to give her untravelled readers an idea of what these temperatures would be like. She compares and contrasts the average temperature in Eastbourne. So in July while it would be an imaginable 60F on Englands' coastline, in Florence it would be tropical at 81F. Strange how the Eastbourne Scale didn't catch on...

If you can bear the heat, Fanny recommends lots to do while in Florence. The most important of which is to shop for straw goods in the aptly named Straw Market. She couldn't get enough straw. In addition to shopping Fanny recounts the delights of the Firenze Golf Club, the Winter Opera Season (December and January), a wealth of Art and Architecture and in summertime you can watch the locals play football in funny costumes. What more could you want from a forgiven jaunt? It all sounds so perfectly civilised.

Except the food, which Fanny describes as 'running the gamut from A to B' using the adjective 'limited' as a harsh warning. She then, of course, goes on to list a huge variety of food that you can get, and better still that you should bring home with you. Exotic items like Aubergines and her beloved Pimentos. She lets readers and possible travellers know to expect an excessive use of cheese, far too much frying, out of proportion tomato sauces, inordinate amounts of pastas and for everything to be served with an abundance of oil, which Fanny notes is disastrous for the 'untrained stomachs.' Don't ask how she knows, but Johnnie looks sheepish.

Fanny does recommend Florence for sweet little biscuits however, and recreates her version of a Florentine in the partwork. She melts butter with sugar, adding in chopped almonds, flaked almonds, chopped glacé cherries (Il Tricolore if you please) and a little cream. Fanny leaves this mixture to cool before blobbing teaspoons-full onto trays and baking them for 12 minutes. They spread a lot (did she miss out the flour?), and emerge like super thin shards of brown glass, ready for their characteristic chocolate bases, swirled with forks into wavy patterns. They sum up Fannys review of Florence - gay and colourful, baked in heat unknown in Eastbourne, cultured and exotic, crisp and sweet, although a little greasy with copious amounts of butter. Presumably by the time you return from Florence your stomach has been trained to cope.

Talk of the Steamie

Cooking along with Fanny Cradock regularly leads me to reminisce about foods from my own past, as well as foods that have somehow sadly become neglected in the midst of time. Sometimes Fanny is cooking things I remember we ate, or using an ingredient that I haven't seen for a while. Sometimes she is looking back on a dish that we used to eat a lot, maybe not prepared in the same way. When I see Steamed Chocolate Pudding I think of a tin from Heinz bubbling away on a stove long after the meal was finished with some dazzling bright custard waiting as patiently as we were. Of course Steamed Pudding à la Cradock, revived from history, does not involve any nasty tins, everything is prepared from scratch and prepared for a very special occasion.

You'll recall Fanny teased us with this recipe over a year ago, while she was showing us a steamed suet pudding. This time she introduces it without fanfare, after all that waiting. This is the famous pudding she created especially for the writer W Somerset Maugham. In 1981, around a decade after the partwork was published, Fanny and Johnnie were clearly more keen to recollect, publishing a book musing over their memories through the years. Actually, 'Time to Remember' was more like an early edition of Hello magazine, as they gossiped and dropped names on almost every page as they harked back to review the rich and famous folk who had enjoyed their cooking through the years.

As Fanny tells it, W Somerset Maugham, in his nineties at the time, was a man who really knew his food. Unfortunately Annette, who Fanny admits was one of the 'finest woman cooks' in France and who worked for the writer, was simply no good with 'nursery puddings' and in particular those faffy English ones. Fanny lists some of the recipes that Annette could make successfully, including Crème Maire-Louise, fish pie and a 'peasant' omelette, and also some of the well-to-do folks that had enjoyed them, including Winston Churchill, the Duchess of Windsor and the Aga Khan. But her steamed puddings were 'a disaster'.

Clearly then when W Somerset Maugham was to come to luncheon it would be a show-off affair with a showstopping steamed pudding to finish. Fanny provided a choice of two desserts but dear old 'Willie' (they were so close) exclaimed, after just one mouthful of the chocolate pudding, 'Ignore the other, take the pudding. It is truly admirable, extremely light... oh yes...!' before polishing off three portions. The pudding itself was made simply by creaming butter, adding sugar, flour and ordinary drinking chocolate with eggs and a little milk. Then steamed for three hours in a thickly buttered basin covered with buttered papers. Don't tell Annette.

Fanny served her hard-to-resist and hard-to-replicate (if you are a French cook or don't happen to have Fannys own instructions) pudding with a chocolate pouring sauce made by softening chocolate in a small pot with brown sugar and a little water. Flakes of butter are then beaten in with slosh of brandy. As ever. I'm using a Mint Puddle Chocolate from Dairy Milk, simply because it was calling to me as I stood in the supermarket checkout queue (it was on offer), and I thought it'd make a particularly good sauce. It did. The pudding is indeed light and moist. It as indeed reminiscent of those puddings I had in tins when I was young, but 'oh yes', so much better. My memories have indeed been replaced. I can't quite manage thirds, but will enjoy it at several points throughout the day, which is surely the same thing?