Rise Cream

There seem to be various dishes that Fanny Cradock thinks she can make anything into. Omelettes can be almost any conceivable flavour, savoury or sweet. Choux Buns can be filled with an extraordinary array of goodies, and some baddies too. However Fanny's very favourite dish is the soufflé. She's is always whipping one up at a moments notice, especially when the faces in the crowd show fear and disbelief that it will remain standing proud. Fanny has no fear when it comes to soufflés. She even makes an ice-cream version.

It all sounds a little strange, I mean a soufflé is baked and an ice-cream is, well, not usually. Unless it's a Baked Alaska. Soufflés are the ultimate in wow and wobble. Ice-creams are, well, stiff and static. How on earth will Fanny combine the two?

Fanny starts with soft fruit, which can be anything that happens to be available - strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, peaches, apricots or even Victoria Plums. They must be the Victoria variety apparently. I have some stray brambles lurking in my freezer from a foraging expedition last autumn. Fanny doesn't favour the bramble as we know, but I'm sure I can convince her.

Fanny insists the fruits are sieved to a purée, unsweetened. Emulsification will simply not do. To this she adds some simple stock sugar syrup, made simply by gently heating sugar and water until the sugar dissolves. Then boil it for a few minutes. Fanny asks me to whip my cream until it is piping consistency and beat my egg whites very stiffly indeed. Of course I comply, still a little unsure of what will happen next.

Fanny instructs poor Dianne to cut a length of cartridge paper two inches taller than the soufflé mould, and to attach it securely as a collar with tiny scraps of sellotape. Tiny scraps mind, no un-necessary wastage, which presumably Dianne had done sometime before to warrant such a warning. So then, the beaten cream is beaten into the purée, and the very stiff egg whites are folded in before the mixture is poured into the collared-mould for freezing. Fanny includes some detailed pictures showing Dianne preparing the finished iced soufflé for presentation, just incase you haven't got it yet. Dianne cuts the scraps of sellotape carefully, and removes the collar. Presto! She reveals a firm, but light and airy, smooth and perfectly set ice-cream 'soufflé' inside. It doesn't collapse when served, but may melt. Have no fear.

Totally Tropical Transformation

Fanny Cradock says almost any fruit, tinned or fresh, or even nuts, can be turned into a fabulous ice-cream. The most intriguing ones are flavours that you just can't pop down to the supermarket and pick up. Flicking through the pages of the ice-cream partwork I can't help but wonder if these long-forgotten flavours have disappeared for good reason, or indeed were they ever popular at all, apart from in Fannys mind? I mean have Ben and Jerry's ever considered Black Plum? Would Häagan Dazs whip up a quick batch of Green Grape? How about a Mackies Chestnut? Perhaps none of them have thought about Pineapple?

I've never seen Pineapple Ice-Cream anywhere. Perhaps I just lead a more sheltered life than I am prepared to admit, but I do hover around the freezers when I'm shopping looking at and, lets be honest, lusting after the ice-creams in particular. So, I'd probably have seen it. And bought it. And eaten too much of it. I'm a bit of an ice-cream fiend truth be told. So, you can imagine this particular partwork is especially pleasing for me!

Fanny uses her perfectly standard, perfectly whipped, perfectly frozen basic ice-cream, as ever. Just custard and cream whipped together and frozen really. To make it all pineapple-y she takes a tin of pineapple chunks and chops it all up into small pieces. I could only find pineapple rings when I went shopping, but my scissors made light work of them. I couldn't find the secateurs. Snip! Then smoosh! Transfer to the freezer for a bit, until the edges start to go solid, then whip it out, whip it up and whip it back in...

While you wait for it to freeze properly, Fanny has the perfect accompaniment which cunningly doubles as a garnish for presentation too. Fresh Pineapple. It's a little bit of a mystery why, if you were, in the first place, able to get hold of some lovely, fresh, succulent pineapple back in the early 1970's that you would opt to use a tin to make the ice-cream, and the fresh to make a garnish. Fanny's mind works in mysterious ways. Her mind is also excellent at dreaming up unusual and, erm, innovative, uses for things to transform them into other things that we least expect. Eggs as swans. Melons as baskets. Bananas as candles. You get the idea. Surely she had something extra special in mind for the humble Pineapple?

Fanny's instructions are to trim it and carefully, with a sharp knife, remove the skin. Sounding standard so far, no doubt she will soon suggest carving it into a swan... Fanny says to slice it fairly thickly into rounds. No swans then. And then each circle into quarters. No carving then. The next step is to dredge each piece in ordinary sugar to get them ready for assembly... Which means back into the shape of a pineapple. Oh. Transforming a pineapple into a pineapple. Kind of like Pineapple Jenga. But still a pineapple. The ice-cream itself is great, really tastes of pineapple. With the addition of some extra pineapple, it is well and truly a pineapple party. Served in a pineapple.

Fanny Features - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?

Back in July 1970, when there were only a couple of TV channels to choose from, a new series from the nations favourite, Fanny Cradock, always sure to be riding high in the ratings, was quite the big news. Fanny herself was quite the big celebrity, featuring somewhat strangely to todays eyes as the inspirational and aspirational poster-girl in flashy magazine spreads with her must-have celebrity life. So naturally she'd give quite the big interview to promote the new batch of shows. Sadly knocked off the cover of the Radio Times by the young whipper snapper Lulu, Fannys big scoop for her new series was how the journalist described her to the readers.

Sexy. Very powerful and very sexy, unbelievably those were the opening words. The good folks of 18th-24th July 1970 were mostly settling down to watch the excitement of Commonwealth Games beamed live from Edinburgh, so Fanny was pitched as the steamy, spicy and risqué alternative. They must've choked on their digestive biscuits reading this. Nestled after a far-from suggestive Party Political Broadcast by the Labour Party and between what I'm sure was a provocative but not-so titillating Mantovani Concert and the ever-sensuous Kirk Douglas in Cortez and the Legend, the BBC hid flirtatious Fanny and her new show away on BBC2 at 10pm. Presumably well after the watershed, and just before bed when viewers only had Ovaltine on their minds, was the only safe time to broadcast such an explosive sex-bomb to the nation.

The Radio Times writer does concede that her sexually alluring qualities don't always come across well on the box, especially with her hand-washing being reminiscent of Lady Macbeth. I should hope not, this was the BBC, and it was an educational cookery programme, essential for the housewives after all. The BBC, the nations favourite Auntie, wouldn't want the bumbling husbands attention to be artificially aroused by accidentally tuning in just for a glimpse of pure Fanny-shaped filth now would they? Anyway, the article makes it very clear Fanny only has come-hither eyes for one man, dear old Johnnie. Without him, she says, nothing would be worth a damn.

The article reminds us of Fannys professional abilities too, it's not all seductive, suggestive shenanigans. The old-favourites are trotted out - her rags to riches life-story, playing to screaming hordes at the Royal Albert Hall, Fanny being such a great cook and having several careers. All interspersed with scenes of idyllic, but fantasised, mother-hood and Granny-dom not only with her own beloved family, but in her adopted assistants who were always eagerly on site, fastidiously training to follow in her footsteps. The writer notes that the assistants are highly-selected from a pool of over 1500 applicants, with Peter the star-pupil, suggesting they may have been 'summoned to sit at Madame's feet'. Fanny snorts and 'with a look that would stop a bolting horse' replied, 'they'd be trampled to death, dear'. Such is her raw magnetism, clearly.

The new series has a suitably suggestive title for such an absolutely sexy lady - 'Fanny Cradock Invites...' Into her fabulous and well equipped home kitchen she means. That's where the provocation falters. Fanny is keen to show viewers around, but not her private quarters, just her sensational kitchen space, with cookers of every type in every space imaginable, poised for the assistants to begin. Fanny herself lays out a seductive spread in her garden before we leave, with a dish which surely says 'pure sex' like no other. It gets Johnnie fired up every time. Cold Green Omelette. Johnnie is standing by to keep the legions of lusty, libidinous men at bay as Fanny casually but passionately twirls her sunglasses and smiles a knowing smile. Like all true sex-maidens... 'You may want me, but you shall never have me'. At least we get the omelette.

She Wore A Raspberry Beret

Fanny wants us to play 'lets pretend' with her for a moment, as she introduces a 'new' concept to our culinary catalogue. Alcohol. It can be added to food in cooking you know. Please don't look shocked. Please just smile and nod along with Fanny as if you have never raided the cocktail cabinet before in your life. Please never ever let it be known that you've succumbed to the 'one slosh in the pot, one for the cook' philosophy of kitchen capers. So, alcohol in your food, eh, what a grand idea! Fanny thinks it to be a particularly appropriate addition for ice-cream.

Fanny recommends a straightforward Crème de Cacao or Tia Maria to pair with Chocolate. Brandy goes well with coffee, as you might expect. And so Orange Curaçao with Orange Ice Cream. No surprises there, and no stretch on your booze stash. However if your ice cream is Almond flavoured, Fanny suggests Ratafia. For Strawberry her recommendation is Eau de Vie des Fraises. Raspberry requires Bénédictine. My cocktail cabinet is starting to feel rather inadequate. Fanny has a solution - stock up on baby bottles of booze, just one miniature at a time of course as prices are so appalling, scraping the costs together from your stretched household budget and therefore bit by bit building up an 'adequate' range. I'll continue pretending as I place a large on-line order for full bottles.

Fanny's marvellously modern idea for ice-cream is multi-layered and moulded. She has an array of historic moulds - china, tin and cooper. She also has a selection that she refers to as the 'make do' moulds, which she suggests may be what we use at home. These include cake tins, loaf tins and savarin rings. I have a rather charming little china ring mould though so do not need to stoop to the mere domestic level, just yet. For added fancy, Fanny insists that we make 'composite' ice-creams in layers, laced with our new-found knowledge of booze. Let's not let the pretence slip... Oh what a smashing idea!

I have some of Fanny's foundation ice cream already in the freezer. Made simply with whipped cream, folded in custard, and a touch of vanilla, before freezing, ready to be retrieved at short notice and flavoured up as required. Fanny suggests three layers of ice cream, but I, perhaps fuelled with the courage of alcohol, break rank and insist on only two. To half I add a spoonful of freeze dried Raspberry Powder which I picked up from Spice Mountain on my last trip to Borough Market. To the other half, some Pistachio Paste I bought from Sous Chef. The raspberry needs no additional colouring, but the pistachio benefits from a little harmless vegetable green-ness. I don't have Bénédictine (yet) but Fanny recommends Maraschino to go with Pistachio, so in it goes! Sparingly, this is Fanny's key to success. Swig.

Fanny's top tip for moulds is to burnish them hard and carefully with oil before filling. To un-mould once frozen, hold upside down under a very hot tap before placing on your chosen dish, shaking it vigorously and 'hey presto', out it comes. Sort of. Fanny reminds us to re-freeze the un-moulded ice cream on the serving plate until required (tented in foil) to be taken out when serving the main course. Otherwise folks will never get their forks through it. The finished ring of joy is a tempting triumph, tasty and a thrill for the eyes. Not like those 'revolting' Italian trifles such as Zuppa Inglese that Fanny hates so much, drenched in dollops of very crude Italian liqueurs such as Strega. Fanny's restraint is, she notes, a financial as well as a gastronomic consolation. Johnnie rates her ice-creams as Three Stars, in Michelin terms. Perhaps he's been hitting the booze too. Slosh. Quaff. Guzzle.

Ice To See You, To See You Ice

Fanny has a delicious proposal for me. She is suggesting we go on an adventure together. I'm assuming it's just me and her, she doesn't mention poor Johnnie at all. I'm also assuming there is nothing deliciously underhand going at all, just to be clear. I'm assuming it's something deliciously food related, she's obsessed. I'm hopeful. She's raising her eyebrows to even higher levels than usual and is making mysterious motions towards the kitchen, so, despite a slight feeling of panic, I can only speculate we aren't going very far on this delicious adventure together.

Thankfully, the adventure Fanny has in mind is into the 'realms of home-made ice-cream', so all we need to locate is our freezer. For those less fortunate than Fanny perhaps, who only have a small freezing compartment in their ordinary domestic refrigerators, Fanny says join us anyway, but just cut down her quantities to fit. So just miniscule tablespoons perhaps? For those more fortunate in the freezer department, Fanny promises we can make ice creams in bulk for storage, adding flavours as required. I always find ice cream is best eaten immediately until it's all finished, so storage is a new concept for me...

Fanny has a set of 'basics' that she's keen that we cherish and learn by heart so that they are in our heads and at our disposal whenever we want to make ice cream, throughout the year, before we progress. She knows how to plan an adventure, eh? Her foundation recipe is 1 pint of confectioners custard and either 1/2 pint (when you are willing to pay for more) or a 1/4 pint (if your purse is stretched) of whipped double cream. Indeed if your purse is very stretched, Fanny says you can frankly freeze the flavoured custard on it's own. She does however note that it's flat-out not worthy of the first-class, first-rate standards that we've come to expect from her. So the message is you can, but the real message is don't.

Fanny's method for most freezers is mainly to whip the cold cream until it just hangs from the whisk, and then whip it into the custard. freeze it until the edges are set and the centre is squidgy, whip it again for 5 minutes, then return it to the freezer until it's solid. When frozen, take it out and whip it again and refreeze. If you have a deep freeze, just bung it in and freeze it. So is all committed to memory? I will pass round examination papers shortly.

Well, forget it for now, as Fanny has a recipe of her very own to teach us. It's for Orange Ice Cream. In fairness, it's a similar process, but swapping the custard for a sorbet, mostly. Fanny dissolves sugar slowly in water, with orange zest, then boils it for nine minutes until it's a very fine syrup. She adds an egg yolk and strained orange juice, cooks for five more minutes stirring all the time. Then freeze, whip, freeze, whip and refreeze as before. Whip in whipped cream and freeze for the final time. There you have it, orange ice-cream. Serve in an orange, of course. It's delicious adventure. It soon becomes clear why Johnnie was not invited. Fanny reveals that, despite him being a wine-lover, he has been known to polish off forty-seven portions of this particular ice-cream in one session. Fanny says he is a pig about it, but being Fanny's own recipe of course he is a very discerning pig. Just don't let him near your freezer compartment.

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)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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.