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 Mille Feuille Love Songs Later

Now that we've mastered our own puff paste, Fanny thinks we are ready to move on speedily to the Classics. Well, the kind of Fanny version of the classics that we have become accustomed to, and in many ways expect to see. Fanny has, with only our very best interests at heart, worked out a way that we can make the Classic Mille Feuille - which is traditionally difficult to make really well - easily and quite quickly. Fanny has scoffed her way around a fair few cream puffs in her quest to find the best, and frankly some of the soggy objects she has been offered were not fit for her, or us. Her version will be the only one to do.

If you haven't made Fannys homemade puff paste, she does say that you can buy some in the shops. It really was more straightforward than expected though. Either way it should be rolled out very thinly, to an extremely mean quarter of an inch. Fanny uses a 'proper' Mille Feuille metal frame to measure and cut - inside the frame please - out the required shapes of pastry. They are then cooked inside the frame to ensure that they remain the correct size. I don't have a frame. I decide to go a bit more free-form, cutting neatly measured rectangles using a pizza cutter. I've been watching the Bake Off Crème de la Crème you see. Fanny may not be pleased, but Cherish the ruler regulator might be.

The only trouble with precision measuring and cutting is that my pastry rolling skills are not precise. So I end up with a lot of off-cuts. In her crusade to enlighten me to the proper, professional way, Fanny has a solution. So, while my rectangles are puffing up on a wetted base in the hot oven, Fanny suggests we set about making some Palmiers. The scraps of paste are cobbled together and rolled out to a large rectangle, brushed with a beaten egg and sprinkled wth sugar. The long edges are rolled in to meet each other in the middle, and stuck together with more egg wash before being sliced and arranged on another wetted tray ready to be baked. Savoury Palmiers may be made using cheese instead of sugar if required. Handy to know, thanks Fanny.

Fannys Classic Mille Feuilles require nothing more than assembly for the first stage. Fanny splits each puffy rectangle in half horizontally and begins making a tower of puffy leaves sandwiched with jam and cream. Confectioners custard may be used in alternative layers too, but I stick with the classic jam and cream combination. I've got extra thick double cream which spreads well and doesn't need to be whipped, so my arm can have a rest. Fanny insists on there being seven layers in all, so one half a rectangle will not be used. Nor will it be wasted. Fanny dusts it with icing sugar and slices it into fingers for tea. I'd be tempted just to have eight layers really, there would still be no waste at all, but I suppose that's not the classic way.

The classic topping is a simple Glacé Icing (icing sugar mixed with a little water) with a chocolate swirly decoration drawn into it. Fanny uses her very favourite softened chocolate chips, but I have a shortcut in a tube. Fanny 'runs in' (the proper technical term) the decoration using a butchery needle. I am quite scared. Thankfully I have a much safer chopstick to hand, perfect for swirling duties. Fanny does say if you simply can't be bothered, don't. Oh. It won't affect the taste of this classic at all. Too late, I've done it. I'm classic through and through, it seems. Fanny is simply doing her job, showing us everything she possibly can, giving us the finest possible information. And, bearing in mind she still has that butchers needle in her hand, we are so very grateful. Aren't we? The finished Mille Feuille won't win any style awards, but it is so tasty. The pastry crisp, light and feathery. The cream and jam balanced well. No soggy objects. Classic Fanny.