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.

Pudding on the Brits

I don't know about with you, but it's been snowing here in Edinburgh this weekend, so something totally warming, perhaps stodgy and oh-so comforting is required. Quick as a flash, Fanny flies in with her long-forgotten solution, native to these isles and once found on almost all kitchen tables - the steamed pudding. A savoury one to boot. She claims it's one of her very favourites, as it has cheese in the crust, but of course she puts her own special twist on it to help with the presentation...

Fanny says she's flicked through all the cookery books she owns (which I imagine are simply the ones she has written herself) and despite all her furious research, she has been unable to find anything even remotely similar to this, ever, in history. She's not claiming to have invented this one, she does recognise that she may have seen it somewhere, she is just not sure where or when. This does not stop dear old Fanny from unveiling it to the world.

Fanny's savoury crust of course uses proper, everyday, honest to goodness suet. No-one would ever need to explain it, or indeed have any consideration that you may not be happy to eat it. Thank heavens for a vegetarian version courtesy of Atora snuggling away in my cupboard waiting for such a weekend as this. Once nestled in with the flour (self-raising as Fanny always insists), some additional baking powder, a little seasoning, a whole load of cheese and 'enough' cold water to make a good stiff dough no-one would ever be able to tell anyway. I love a suet dough, it's so manageable and as I've used bright red cheese in this one, you can really see the flecks as your roll it. I'm feeling warm and cheery already.

Fanny fills her pudding with beef. pork or veal, so I swap that for some frozen vegetables. It seems appropriate for this oh-so freezing weekend. Fanny herself was a fan of the freezer too, so I'm not going to feel too badly. All seems fine. I fling the spinach and butternut squash into pans (separate ones) and cook them down. The squash goes all squishy, but that's fine as I want a very rough purée, honest. To both I add a touch of seasoning and a grind of fresh nutmeg. Oh and egg yolks, just like Fanny does to her meat. I wonder of she made hers look like google eyes too? Actually, probably.

Any normal suet pudding, even a savoury one, Fanny notes, would start off with the pastry lining the well buttered bowl. Not here. Oh no. Fanny builds up layers in stripes of cheesy suet crust and filling, cutting suet discs in every increasing circles to fit the bowl. Fanny steams the pudding for two and a half hours before unmoulding. She does warn that these puddings are not for the faint hearted or those nervous of turning them out in front of guests. If you fall into these categories, Fanny recommends that you serve it just from the bowl, with a clean napkin wrapped around it, or revert back to an old fashioned style pudding, with the bowl lined and filling inside. I think in giving such an instruction most readers would quiver and cave in. But why would you pass the opportunity to slice into this striped beauty and wow your guests, not only with the taste but with the style too. Please don't be a pudden and allow suet puddings to remain forgotten, they really are so very perfect for a winters treat.

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...

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?

Taking The Pistachio

Fanny reckons that she has the home cook completely sussed. She knows how to make them vulnerable. According to Fanny they are already susceptible enough when it comes to chocolate recipes, so her plan is to make them (or hang on a cotton-picking minute, does she mean me?) doubly defenceless. Fanny can always spot a chocolate obsessed home cook you see, they will tend to read, ponder over and generally sort out any other kind of recipe, but give them an absolute dud with chocolate and they will rush to try it. The solution is of course to give them a good one, one of Fanny's! Fanny says there is not one 'woman in a thousand' who will fail to betray her slimming diet with 'just a slice', 'only one' or 'just a very small portion'. No duds here.

I'm not on a slimming diet, but the flavour combination that makes me go weak is chocolate and pistachio. I just love it. Fanny uses pistachios from time to time, but warns that in the 1970's they were hard to find, and way beyond the already stretched purse for many. I'm not tightening any belts just yet though and was thrilled to find the Lindt Pistachio Delight on sale in my local supermarket - I'd previously discovered it in Paris and fell in love... Chocolate with a pistachio filling, what's not to adore? Perfect for a twist on Fanny's Moist Chocolate Cake, non?

Fanny starts this cake by preparing the tin, naturally. She uses a perfectly ordinary 8" Victoria Sponge tin, buttered, lined with a disc of greaseproof paper, buttered again and then floured. It may seem like a faff, but I find it quite therapeutic really and the cakes always pop out well at the other end. This sponge is genoise in style. Fanny says to whisk up whole eggs and an extra yolk, with caster sugar in a bowl over another bowl of boiling water. Not that I want to cheat or anything, but I've seen recently that using a stand mixer on high speed produces the same results, and is less finicky. After all that tin preparation I need a short cut! Poor Sarah, my mixing assistant, makes light work of it, whipping it up until it is thick, risen and pale in colour. Fanny warns that if you cut down on the whipping you will spoil the cake! Thankfully Poor Sarah just keeps going and going.

This sponge only has a small amount of flour, but it needs to be added carefully so as to not take all the air out of the risen mix. Fanny folds hers in with a plastic spatula before adding softened chocolate chips, which I'm swapping for my pistachio chocolate. The mix is really thick and sticky, so takes a fair bit of folding to incorporate the flour and chocolate before pouring into the prepared tin. Fanny bakes hers for the very exact timing of 24 minutes, but I found mine needed much longer - probably another 20 minutes. Maybe it's because I didn't whisk it over the boiling water which presumably would've started the cooking process? Or maybe Fanny made a mistake? Surely not.

Fanny hides the inevitable crusty cracked top of the cake by flipping it over, then covering it with homemade almond paste. To keep with the pistachio theme, I experiment, switching the almonds for pistachios. I whizz up some gorgeously green and purple nuts and blend them with an egg white, orange blossom water, rose water and icing sugar. Just a quick knead and it's ready to roll. Fanny glues hers on with warmed apricot jelly, but I am using some homemade marmalade, which seems to work well. The pistachio paste is a great colour, natural for once, and covers the bouncy chocolate cake well. Fanny makes chocolate shavings to top hers, I chop up some more pistachio chocolate. You can never have too much. I'm ready to be exposed to a slice or two, it tastes nutty, not too sweet and very light. Surely not too calorific, it must be mostly air. I'll leave the small portions for those vulnerable slenderising home cooks, Fanny is training me in her professional ways, which I am taking to mean eat well, eat often, eat lots. That's my kind of diet.

A Whole New World

Fanny has an admission. It's not something which comes easily to her, but she is prepared to concede that she is not always right. Mostly, but not always. We've learnt at Fanny's side that pancakes must always be thin, they must always be delicate, they must always be made with Olive Oil and they must always be French. Of course, they must always be Fannys' recipe. Unless of course they are puffy, unless they are thick, unless they contain no Olive Oil and unless they come from the 'new world' as Fanny describes The United States. Fanny of course continues to refer to them in French as Crêpes Américaines, but also simply as Puffed Pancakes from the New World. I'm sure our friends in the U.S. would be so pumped.

For these puffy pleasures Fanny takes a whole new world approach and embraces a whole new technique. The ingredients are roughly the same though, eggs, single cream and flour. I was lucky to be sent a sample of Wrights Self Raising Flour this week, so it was put straight to good use here! Fanny adds egg yolks to her flour, and then mixes it all up to a thick batter with the cream. I wonder if I should've beaten the yolks into the cream first as it's hard to get the flecks of orange evenly distributed. Fanny doesn't say, she just gets to work.

Fanny whips up her egg whites ready to be added 'at the moment of making'. My trustee assistant Poor Sarah the KitchenAid has been languishing in the repair centre all week, but she made her way home just in time to set to whisking and a-whizzing for me. It's been so hard without her ready to leap into action at a moments click of the fingers. No wonder Fanny had a small army of endlessly hard working assistants scurrying away in her kitchen. It's been hard work this week all on my own!

Fanny suggests three ways to serve the finished puffy pancakes - all piled sky high, and all her own interpretation of what 'American' would be - first blasted with cinnamon and icing sugar, secondly inflated with chocolate chips in the batter, served with swollen raisins and maple syrup. Her third option is savoury - she makes a perfectly ordinary tomato sauce and smothers them in it and tops with bacon. That's not for me clearly. I'm not sure if Fanny ever went to America herself, but I love heading Stateside whenever I can. I always come back with bloated suitcases stuffed with 'candy' - I could practically open my own tacky high street store that we all secretly love. We'd love them more if they weren't so expensive I'm guessing. So I grab for some moreishly minty M&Ms which for some reason I have left untouched since my last trip! How did that happen?

Fanny adds hers into the batter and dollops them into a hot pan brushed lightly with olive oil. I knew it would make an appearance somewhere. As soon as they are 'set' she flips them over before piling up, drizzling with Maple Syrup, ready to be scoffed. The green M&Ms slowly seep and colour the batter in between each batch until the end ones are very verdant indeed. The chocolate melts and oozes out of the crisp shells to create a undeniably tasty pancake. They aren't as puffy as other 'American' style ones I've made, but these were Fanny's idea of a whole new world of pancakes. Compared to the slivers of French ones they are still light but airy, squidgy, and bursting with the M&Ms. Maybe minty pancakes aren't everyones cup of tea for breakfast though. I think they are right and I kind of like it when Fanny is 'wrong'...