Would You Adam and Eve It?

Fashions for cookbooks continue to change all the time - whether it be the authors, the content or the design. Fanny herself devised an amazing array of over 40 cookbooks, and she rode every imaginable craze going.  She blooming well invented them too. The main direction she wanted us to go was backwards, of course not in our skills, in time. She wanted to 'bring back' good, old fashioned British cooking, with more than an 'Allo 'Allo to the French way of doing things. By that she meant mainly Victorian-style gastronomy, but more suited to the garish orange fabric of life for the modern housewife of the 60's and 70's who wasn't fortunate enough to have 'help'. So, everything had to be easy to achieve (which meant following Fanny to the letter), in super quick time (which was before your husband returned from work with his new boss for dinner) and without straining the  purse (which had taken rather a battering in recent years).

You see Fanny loved a pudding. Ye Olde ones mainly. She often called them Puddens. Savoury or sweet, mostly steamed but sometimes baked. Sometimes frozen or 'set'. All sorts of ingredients could be mixed up, transferred to one of the many pudding moulds from the dazzling display of designs that lined the kitchen shelves and simmered on the stove, or in a bain-marie in the oven, for a good few hours. Sometimes stodgy. Sometimes solid. Sometimes substantial. Always a filling, old-fashioned addition to any meal. Fanny wrote about them throughout all her cookbooks, and usually managed to slip in a pudding to her Bill of Fare, despite them slipping in and out of fashion.

I am delighted, as I'm sure Fanny would be too, that they may be coming back into vogue, thanks to a wonderfully glorious new cookbook just about to be released. I managed to snap up a sly copy ahead of release thanks to my local Waterstones being somewhat 'fluid' on dates and seemingly popping books on the shelves as they arrive in store. Naughty but nice. The wonderfully titled Pride and Pudding from Regula Ysewlin (Miss Foodwise if you please) is the most luxurious romp back through the centuries of puddings, savoury and sweet. Not only immaculately researched, but each recipe, in both original and updated form, is presented with a thoroughly ravishing set of photographs to boot. Regula is a talented photographer and graphic designer. Drool. The book is all wrapped together with a suitably elaborate and engaging design, thanks to Regula's husband and illustrator Bruno. Regula has Bruno. Fanny had Johnnie.

I can't take my eyes of the book, it's my current bedtime read. I'm not getting much sleep. I even started to leaf through the stunning pages while walking along the street heading home after excitedly, and sneakily it seems, buying it. This is the book Fanny wishes she could've written, telling the story not only of the British pudding, but also the cooks, writers and moments in history that helped to shape them. Many of them women. Fanny's all-time favourite Mrs A.B. Marshall features in the Ices and Jellies section. It had been Fanny's lifelong desire to reintroduce Mrs Marshall to the gastronomic world. Perhaps if Johnnie had been able to able to be more help than blethering on about booze she may have succeeded.

Fanny revives an Apple Pudding for us in the Easter partwork in the guise of Adam and Eve, mixing up her biblical references delightfully. It's a simple pudding made from breadcrumbs, moistened with milk, suet, sugar, lemon zest, raisins, egg and chopped apples added. I've used vegetable suet, naturally, and lovely Pink Lady Apples. Fanny doesn't specify. Mixed together and rammed into mini buttered moulds they simply steam for an hour or so, served still steaming away with a small dollop of cream. Fanny showcased them in her own very particular style back in the 1970's, already fading from fashion by then, but I love it. She would've been so very jealous of Pride and Pudding, but suitably proud and passionate too. I'm delighted to have both in my life - there is always room for pudding, whatever the fashion, whatever the mould and whatever the design. 

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.

It's All In The Booklet #4 - Christmas Pudding

Fanny has rescued this festive recipe from the vaults of the esteemed French Chef Escoffier, but of course is keen to add in her own twist too. She wants us to revive the perfectly round Christmas Pudding which was the centrepiece of dinner tables everywhere in bygone days. Only one problem, they used to always be made in the old 'coppers' which families boiled up their laundry in, on Mondays. Fanny however doesn't recommend flinging your pudding into the modern day washing machine, so instead turns to modifiying a standard kitchen sieve. I am less concerned with a perfectly round pudding, so I just use a pudding bowl, in truth I decide to make individual puddings in small moulds, please don't tell Fanny. I've never in my life made or tasted a Christmas Pudding, but the ingredients seem lovely - fruits, breadcrumbs, ginger, suet (I use some lovely vegetarian suet from Suma) nuts, alcohol... As ever, Fanny gives detailed instructions in the booklet. 

All the dried ingredients are mixed together, the chopped apples added, followed by the eggs, citrus juices, beer and Brandy. It's really quite boozy. Why have I never had this before? Once combined the loose, floppy mixture is left overnight to rest and become a firmer, thicker mixture as the breadcrumbs expand.

Next day the mixture is pressed into the buttered moulds (or large bowl, or indeed sieve), covered with greased butter papers (please don't do as Fanny does on TV and shamefully show the label) or ordinary squares of oiled greaseproof paper, cover again with foil, secure with string, tie a handle and steam. As mine as individual I am using my electric steamer, which is very rarely used but is perfect here as I can get three layers. Fanny of course uses a steriliser which is very large and deep but any large pot would do.

Fanny steams her pudding for 10 whole hours at first, my smaller ones take just 3, and then they are left to cool, stored away for a few weeks somewhere to mature until the Christmas feast. When they are required, on Christmas Day, they need to be steamed again - the large one for 3 hours, my individual ones just for an hour. Fanny wants us all to have the drama of wow-ing our guests with a flaming pudding, something to upset the neighbours and put their nose out of joint. Her trick is to use a mixture of Brandy and Vodka for the flame to give a longer burn time. This is something she often used when doing her demonstrations at the Royal Albert a Hall and such like, so if it's good enough for that it's grand for me. I have been making some fresh Cranberry Vodka this year, so this seems like the perfect time to crack it open. More booze!

The alcohol needs to be warmed gently, over a mere thread of heat. Fanny suggests until you can just feel the heat with your (spotlessly clean, before anyone thinks of writing in to complain) fingers, ouch. Fanny recommends training a friend to carry the flaming pudding to the table wiggling it all the time, which gives a boost of oxygen and keeps the flames going. I presume Fanny makes poor darling Sarah do this, as she points out on TV she gets VERY nervous in front of the camera and her hands tremble so badly - this sounds perfect. My first ever Christmas Pudding is lovely, very, very boozy and surprisingly light to taste as always with Fanny. Fanny serves hers with green coloured Brandy butter and tiny scraps of angelica and glacé cherry. Of course. Merry Christmas one and all, hic...

I've linked this post up other Fresh Cranberry recipes over at Blue Kitchen Bakes hosted by Jen - pop over for a look http://bluekitchenbakes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/fresh-cranberry-recipe-link-up.html