Plait du Jour

Fanny includes several variations for bread in the partwork to help raise our skills from the basic white loaf. There's Brown Bread, Cracked Wheat Bread, Milk Bread, Sweet Rye Bread and also Spiced Sweet Rye Bread. So many to choose from. The ingredients don't vary too much - a spot of 'lard' here and there, and from time to time some treacle or syrup instead of, and as well as, sugar. The technique doesn't vary at all, it's clearly a tried and trusted method which Fanny loves for her loaves, all made 'without a steam proving oven' in a futuristic nod of disapproval to the Bake Off. Fanny is much more excited about the shape of bread rather than the flavour or style, which can be made with 'unorthodox containers for bread shapes' or ordinary baking sheets. How versatile.. Above all garnish and presentation. As ever.

Fanny pays particular attention to plaits. To illustrate her fondness for them she dedicates several pages and many pic-strips to showing us how to plait successfully. Or rather Johnnie does. He seems to do most of the pic-strip demonstrations. Presumably Fanny is off practising her most feminine facial expressions. She's keen however that we learn two types of plaits, a three-strand and a five-strand version. Fanny says to use any of her breads for plaits, and if you are feeling particularly adventurous why not 'knit' strands of each together? Maybe it's because it's midweek, but I'm not really feeling THAT adventurous, so I plump for Brown.

To 'score' brown bread flour, and indeed Rye flour and Cracked Wheat, luckily there isn't any localised baker flirting involved - it's a simple trip to the 'nearest' health food store. For me, that's a welcome skip along to Real Foods. They've got loads of different flours and also sell flour 'loose' which is great if you only want to try a small amount for a recipe. I snap up a packet of Marriage's Strong Wholemeal Flour though as I know I'll use it a lot. Fanny looks disdainfully at the 'flimsy paper packets' that flour comes in though. She insists that we all sift them immediately, and store them 'correctly' in flour bins or even plastic 'burper' boxes at home. Presumably that's Tupperware to you and I. I think I'll be calling them Burper Boxes from now on though.

So, same technique as before, but most of the white flour is replaced with brown. Other additions are some lard rubbed in. Time for trusty Trex for me. The lovely fresh yeast is liquified in brown sugar this time, and Fanny adds Treacle to the milk and water mix. My store cupboard is out of treacle, but luckily my Aunt gave me some Jersey Black Butter when she was over recently, which is a great substitute. Well, I hope so anyway!

Once the dough has been mixed in two stages and kneaded for 10 minutes, until it's 'as lively as a bag of fleas', it's time to plait! I've made plaited loaves before, but Fanny does it differently. She rolls out her dough into a flat rectangle, cuts it into either three or five strands leaving an uncut end holding it all together. Johnnie uses a professional pastry cooks scraper for his, but Fanny says an ordinary sharp knife does very well. I have a professional scraper. Get me. She numbers the three plait stands as left to right '1, 3 and 2' for some reason. The sequence to plait is 1 over 3, 2 over 3 and repeat. Fanny clarifies incase the numbering is confusing. It's left over centre, right over centre. The flatness of the strands looks strange, but my finished plaits look like Fannys. Or like the ones in the pic-strip. For the five plait strand the numbering goes left to right '1, 2, 3, 4 and 5' (nothing is straightforward with Fanny) and the sequence is 2 over 3, 5 over 2, 1 over 3 and repeat. It looks just like the three strand version, only a little tighter, with the ends tucked in neatly. Once baked (and egg washed after 10 minutes as before) they look even more similar. I'm struggling to tell them apart really. They remain flatter than I expected, but the brown loaf is tasty and light. Can you tell which is which?

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Doughnuts like Fanny's

Fanny Cradock. Doughnuts. It's a simple game of word association. It's hard to think of one without the other, even after all these years. It's not just me, is it? Various people claim to have muttered the famous line, various people claim to have spluttered their tea when they heard it, but no official record exists. Google it, you'll find lots of claims. Maybe it's better that way, it's maybe more fun to be able to change it round to suit, wonder if it was Johnnie or not, and wonder what Fanny herself thought about it all. It's a perfect gag really, almost anything can be included. People say it to me a lot 'Does your *whatever* look like a Fanny?' OK, they get it wrong, but they remember Fanny with a smile. It's maybe not the way she'd like to be remembered, but it could be worse, couldn't it?

I've made (kind of) Doughnuts with Fanny before, but they were really just fried flavoured bread circles. They were good though. Imagine my excitement to see that the next recipe in the Christmas Tea Time Treats edition was proper, real, actual, Fried Doughnuts. How very appropriate for my 100th post! Almost. It turns out that these are Fannys take on doughnuts, adapted for busy housewives and beginners to boot. Beginners? Gulp, 100 posts does not a professional make. I feel like poor old Gwen Troake being reminded that I am 'among professionals now.' Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. I'm trying not to be disappointed. Smile, they are sure to turn out like Fannys at least.

So, sniff, whimper, flour is sifted with spices and baking powder, butter is rubbed in, sugar 'dredged in' and egg with a little milk cut in. Fanny says that it should be brought together like a pastry dough, with a trusty knife. Fanny uses lard ONLY to fry her doughnuts. I've never used veggie friendly Trex like this before, but in for a penny in for a pound - or rather into the deep fat fryer. Fanny fills her doughnuts before they are fried. I feel cheated, I was hoping I'd get to inject them all afterwards with gooey jam, maybe custard. Instead, Fanny uses a very clean finger to poke a whole in little balls of dough, blobs in some jam and re-rolls the dough round them. She probably has an old pink or green Tupperware bowl nearby to wash her hands in. I don't, but then I've already decided to use chocolate chunks for mine, less mess.

Fanny doesn't say how long to fry them, or at what temperature, but does say that the temperature is 'all important'. Hmmm, not important enough to say though. You don't want them raw, and you don't want them soggy. Nope, agreed. Fanny goes on to say that you don't want the lard to 'bubble sluggishly' and you don't want them to 'seethe fiercely', just somewhere in between. Lots of 'don'ts' but still no real clues what 'to do'. I guess. Once fried, they are simply rolled in caster sugar which can be flavoured with cinnamon, or not. The choice is mine. Thanks Fanny. I choose to use coloured sugar instead, I'm sure that it will give me 'one up' on those niggly neighbours of mine. Always the right choice if there is ever any doubt.

I don't often munch on a doughnut myself, but when I do I like them to be, well, doughy. It's the magic of yeast, sugar and fat that makes them so special. I tried one of Justin Gellatly's on a recent visit to Borough Market. Bliss. For Fanny, at least for now, they just seem like little balls of cake that are fried up. I am slightly disappointed really, I tried not to be but I am. I know she only has my best interests at heart, and I'm sure to find a proper recipe as the Cookery Programme progresses - it would be madness to introduce yeast at this very early stage wouldn't it. On the bright side I can use the joke again, just like Fanny recycling all her recipes I can insert the line from time to time. These doughnuts are good enough, taste alright and look the part, but they aren't going to worry Justin. Maybe I'm disappointed in myself. I'm forgetting that Fanny is teaching me, and this takes time. I can't just congratulate myself after 100 posts (thanks for reading by the way!) when there is so much still to come, Fanny has a lifetime of experience to share with me. For now though, despite having such a strong association in words and history, it turns out that Fannys don't turn out like doughnuts. 

Gingerly hurtling towards Christmas

Fanny thinks that our houses should be filled with an array of tea-time treats all throughout the winter, as we are always sure to be hungry. What could be worse than a steady stream of hungry folk popping in to visit and not only the cupboards being bare, but every tin too... Worst still, imagine no-one comes round and you've got nothing to eat all by yourself to cheer you up. Just saying. Either way, it's time to get baking now just incase, and Fanny has some tea-time treats that will keep for a while, just as long as you store them properly. Actually her Gingerbread will actually improve if tucked away for a time.

With a slight chill in the air, the thought of warming ginger and snuggly treacle seems like the perfect thing. Fanny makes her Gingerbread with 'pure lard' incase we have to hibernate for several months our arteries will remain intact, but for me it's what I hope is a suitable vegetarian alternative, Trex. I've no idea if it will work the same in a cake, it's great in pastry though! 

Fanny sets about preparing the gingerbread by gently heating the 'lard' and the treacle. Or the lard then the treacle, she really can't decide. This is one of those recipes, despite being tested time and time again in her very own kitchen to ensure perfection, that says both things. 'Place the lard and the treacle in a small pan over a very low heat' and 'when the lard is melted, beat thoroughly with the warm treacle'. Not being too sure which is best, I first mix some soft brown sugar with an egg, I can't go wrong there, can I?

There is clearly no time for dithering, there may just be a knock at the door at any moment, and a barrage of hungry folk will be blustering their way into my living room expecting to open my tins and be fed. Maybe. I go with option one, melting the 'lard' with the treacle, then giving it a little beat just because I'm really still not sure. Easier to fathom, I sift some flour with a few spoons of gorgeous ground ginger and sprinkle some bicarbonate of soda in a couple of tablespoons of milk. In goes the sugar and egg mix. In goes the melted 'Trex and Treacle'. In goes the gently bubbling milk. And mix. 

It all comes together quickly into a slightly sweaty looking concoction, slipping around the bowl like it's having way too much fun. That'll be the lardy Trex I guess. But it smells heavenly. Fanny gives one of her 'options' here, if you feel like 'going grand'. Now, I ALWAYS feel like going grand, and you know, you never know who's going to be next to knock on your door, so you've got to be prepared, right? And hopeful. Going grand here means chopping in some glacé ginger and mixing it in well. How very grand indeed. Luckily I have a jar of Opies to hand. The gingerbread can be baked in any number of ordinary cake tins, Fanny says, but the key is to make sure they are prepared properly - by buttering and flouring them well. I do. So, after half an hour in the oven, Fanny suggests letting it cool in the tin, but will it come out? It does. Fanny says that once it's cooled it's best to wrap it thickly and securely in tin foil and storing it away for a week or so. I don't. Not being one to wait and ever hopeful that someone will come a-knocking, I set it up on my cake stand and get my knife ready. I've got a feeling I'm not going to be hungry tonight after this little beauty! All to myself...