Mouthfuls Of Heaven

Plum and Pecan Crumble

2010-02-16T18:46:00.003+11:00

This plum and pecan crumble (which can just as easily be made with walnuts) is comfortingly autumnal - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: We had an abundance of plums from our backyard tree this year and after I'd made chilli plum sauce (also a Nigella recipe) I had to do something with the rest if i was to avoid having a bucket of rotten fruit to dispose of. This was a first step towards using them up.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: None. I did everthing as written, down to the Demerera sugar which I think is barely distinguishable from raw sugar, but you know, I like to things properly.

Special utensils or cookware: I have a great big pie dish I rarely use. It got a work out for this recipe although you could just as easily use anything that's wide and flat.

I was pretty happy when I pulled the plums out of the oven after their first bout of buttery, brown sugary roasting before adding the crumble!

Repeatability: Oh I'll do this again. And again. A plum crumble like this one uses 1kg of plums. That's 1kg less to deal with!

Sauciness: Rich, juicy and oh so flavoursome. Yep.

Overall pleasure level:

It was gorgeous. The finely chopped pecans in the crumble really add a lot of texture and flavour. Next time I'll work on improving my crumble making skills. I loathe the job of rubbing cubes of butter into flour. I got lazy and stopped way before the point where it reached a state of being 'like fine breadcrumbs' and as a result, I think it didn't cook quite well enough. It still had a bit of that raw flour taste. And I'd probably add a smidge more demerera sugar to the mix as well. Otherwise, lovely!

Fairy (Christmas) Cupcakes

2009-12-05T19:59:00.005+11:00

I like the playing part - choosing the colours, the detail - Nigella Lawson

The verdict:
We've covered these cupcakes before here. RoseRed made them for the blog a long time ago but I made them today for a family BBQ and thought it was worth covering them again because I modified them a little. It's the perfect cupcake recipe, as far as I'm concerned. Nigella urges you to make it in the food processor and that's a winner for me. They cooked to perfection and I think they form the perfect base for fancy, playful decoration.

They rise a fair bit in the middle, which I don't think is conducive to the best decorating, so I sliced the risen parts off (and yes, ate them all!) to enable something like smooth surfaces for the royal icing.

Unusual or substituted ingredients:
I actually realised after I started that I had no caster sugar so used plain white sugar and it was just fine. Other than that, the base was made as written.

For the icing, I used royal icing I'd had in the freezer for about two years. I was prepared to not use it when it defrosted, but it turned out the two bundles marked GREEN and WHITE were absolutely fine for using. I rolled them out, cut out some Christmas tree shapes and whacked them on top. Easy.

Special utensils or cookware:
Again, none. You don't have to make these in a food processor. I can't see why you couldn't just mix by hand but I do like the way it makes the mix very, very light and smooth.

Repeatability:
Oh yes, again and again. This will be my go-to cupcake recipe forever I imagine.

Sauciness:
Well you can make them simple and unadorned as Nigella declares she does; or you could dress them up as I did here. I have to say that I think I might have an inner cake decorator itching to get out. Although I don't claim to be great at it, I think with royal icing there's a great amount of pride to be gained for very little effort. These can't fail to impress and give you a very, very good feeling about your perhaps limited cake-decorator skills.

Overall pleasure level:
Huge bang for your buck here. Store cupboard ingredients (not including the frozen royal icing - I'll have to buy it next time) and if you have christmas decorations to hand, as I somehow do even though I don't recall buying them, this version of Nigella's cupcakes makes for a very happy baking experience.

Schnecken

2009-10-19T18:14:00.009+11:00

God I love them - Nigella Lawson

Well, high praise indeed - if Nigella "loves" them, then they truly must be good good good! And decadent and naughty and truly luscious. A friend recommended them to me a long time ago and the only regret I have about making them is that it too me too long to actually do it!

The verdict: OMG THESE ARE AMAZING!! I think this is my favourite recipe so far! Both to cook and especially to eat. Oh my.

You have the fun of making dough (I love seeing it go from a shaggy mess to a smooth springy ball, and then watching it rise).

And then the syrup, which looked to me to be more of a butter mix - until I microwaved it for 30 seconds and it was definitely a syrup then!

I don't think this is a necessary step, but it does make it easier to put the syrup into the muffin tins!

Then the fun of rolling out the dough - actually, that part wasn't a heap of fun, the dough was really springy and I thought it would never roll out to the required size (60x30cm/24x12") but it got there eventually - or close enough anyway!

Then you sprinkle the dough with the sugar and cinnamon mix, roll it up into a lengthwise sausage, and slice it into 12 pieces. These go into the syrup/nut filled muffin tin holes, and are left to rise for a while before baking!

Unusual or substituted ingredients: None - all are easy to obtain (unless you live in the US, which bizarrely doesn't seem to have golden syrup easily obtainable - let me tell you, you guys are missing out! Get it if you can! Light corn syrup is NOT an acceptable substitute!! I did have to buy demerara sugar, as I don't keep it in my pantry, but that was no hassle.

Special utensils or cookware: Just a muffin tin. Preferably one with nice DEEP muffin holes. Mine does not have deep holes, and even while the dough was rising (the second rise, once it's in the muffin tin) the syrup overflowed out of the holes!

It was even worse during the baking!! I had to put a tray under the muffin tin to catch the overflowing syrup. Let me tell you, it smokes up in the oven and makes a sticky sticky mess!
Repeatability: Oh yes! In case you didn't get it before, this stuff is GOOOOOOOD! I will definitely make these again. Preferably when I've got a crowd to feed, because they really are very rich. But they also go very well the next day, especially after a little bit in the microwave. Oh yes, they were just as good the next day!
Sauciness: See above re sauciness!! Nigella's final instruction is "Leave to cool, then apply to face - as if you needed my encouragement". Schnecken is saucy, sticky and oh so satisfying!
Overall pleasure level: If I could give these 11/10, I would! Heck, since I can make the rules, I'm going to - 11/10 for these!! Fantastic!! Make them, you won't regret it! Next time, I might try them with pistachios, rather than walnuts. Or maybe cashews. I don't think you can lose!

Maple-Pecan Bread

2009-10-13T17:21:00.004+11:00

this is a bread that comes into its own with cheese - Nigella Lawson
The verdict: Look, pretty much any bread eaten warm out of the oven is going to be good. It smells good and it tastes good (especially with lots of butter!). But I don't know about this particular bread. Maybe I need to make it again - I'm not entirely sure I cooked it enough this time, it seemed a little doughy in the very middle.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Nothing particularly unusual, although you don't often put maple syrup in a bread mix! I also used walnuts rather than pecans (a substitution which, despite the name of the recipe, Nigella suggests!).
Special utensils or cookware: None! Bread really is very very simple to make!

Repeatability: I think I should make this again to try and do a better job. I think next time I would mix the nuts in at the same time as mixing the dry ingredients - Nigella suggests you "sprinkle" them in while kneading, but I found this very difficult. The recipe uses mostly wholemeal flour, and I find it far denser than white flour. I felt I didn't get the nuts mixed in to the middle of the dough very well at all. I think the kitchenaid would have done a far better job of mixing them in!

Once the bread was cooked, a lot of nuts seemed to "fall off" when I was cutting it. But it still was very nutty!

Sauciness: As Bells has earlier said, bread is earthy rather than saucy! This wasn't too bad, and it was good with cheese. It'd be good to serve at a party! I've found warm bread is always a crowd pleaser!
Overall pleasure level: Hmmm, I think I'd give this 6/10.

Mini Cheesecakes

2009-05-31T19:03:00.005+10:00

These are very easy to make, but I do have to say that lining the mini-muffin tins with the digestive biscuit crust can get a little tedious. This is where your darling children come in - their little fingers are made for the job - Nigella Lawson

The verdict:

I agree entirely with Nigella - these really are very easy to make. Not having any darling children though meant I had to struggle a little with the tin lining. Not to worry, it was worth it!

Unusual or substituted ingredients:
No unusual ingredients at all - although I've got to say that either Nigella has way overestimated the quantity required for the biscuit base, or underestimated the amount of filling required. If you are going to make these, either halve the amount of the biscuit base, or double the amount of the filling (that's what I'll be doing!) .

I also found the amount of butter specified for the biscuit base wasn't quite enough to get the right consistency of "sand" for the base - it did stick, but not as much as I'd have liked - thus making the lining of the teeny tiny muffin forms even harder!

Special utensils or cookware: I don't have mini-muffin tins, so I used a cupcake tin, silicone mini-cupcakes and individual tart cases. I spooned the mixture in and pressed it down with the spoon and then my fingers - getting it up the sides was the hardest, but it was ok in the end.

I used the magimix to crush the biscuits and add the butter to a sand-like consistency, and then washed it and reused it to mix the filling - very easy. It is a baked cheesecake, but only for 10 minutes, so it keeps a nice consistency.

Repeatability: I made these for a playdate with a couple of friends, and I think they were a good choice - can be made the day before, are very easy to transport, no annoying cutting required, just the right size for an after-lunch dessert or with coffee. I would definitely make these again. Just with more of the filling!

Sauciness: These are light and tasty - and would be very easy to modify by adding some berried to the mixture (either before cooking or just on top), or perhaps swirling some melted chocolate through the mix.

Overall pleasure level: Hmmmm, I think these are a 7.5 out of 10 for me. Sweeeeeet!

Easter Nests

2009-04-11T13:18:00.006+10:00

Yes, these are cute; yes, they are kitsch, but I love them all the same - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: How could you not love easter nests? Cute, so easy to make, and hello? chocolatey!

Unusual or substituted ingredients: I wasn't sure if I'd be able to buy shredded wheat here (it's such an English sounding ingredient!), but yes, in the cereal aisle, there it was. It comes in pillow like biscuits (about the size of weetbix) so it needs to be broken up, and that's about the hardest job of all in this recipe. That, and not eating the chocolate before you melt and mix it with the shredded wheat.

Oh, and stopping your husband from eating the bird's eggs (sugar coated solid chocolate eggs, not actual bird eggs!!) straight out of the bag.

Special utensils or cookware: None. This is a no-bake recipe - the most "baking" you have to do is melting the chocolate with a bit of butter in the microwave!

Repeatability: This is a very quick and easy thing to whip up at easter - if you are having people over for coffee or having a lot of kids (grandchildren, nephews and nieces, whatever) it is easy to make these. Nigella must make them big, as she got 5 nests out of the mix. I got 12. I don't think you want them too big, to be honest.

Sauciness: Well, you know how I feel about chocolate - it's always saucy! This is a simple recipe though that Nigella includes in her "children" chapter - it is definitely something that the kids could make with some help, and I'm pretty sure they'd make a big mess, but have fun doing it!

Overall pleasure level: I didn't mind these at all! 7 out of 10 for me! Happy Easter everyone!

Pizza Casareccia

2009-03-25T20:11:00.000+11:00

While we all struggle to produce that thin-crusted, charcoal redolent pizzaiolo's pizza and fail, the Italians recognise that you need to go to the pizzeria for that and have instead devised a home-made alternative, doughier and with more topping, but very good in its own but different way - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: I LOVE homemade pizza - homemade from scratch that is! It is so easy and so yummy, and makes you feel very clever. I know pizza is so easy to get delivered, but when you have the time to make it (which I happen to have right now) it is so worth it!

Unusual or substituted ingredients: The great thing about pizza is that you can pretty much use what you've got in the fridge. Most people will have some cheese (even cheddar is fine!) and a bit of meat and some onion and capsicum or mushroom, or whatever you like on a pizza. You can go gourmet or traditional, whatever you like! The recipe (while it gives toppings) is really about making the pizza base.

Special utensils or cookware: None at all! You just need a bowl, a flat surface (on which to knead) and a baking tray. Although if you are me, feel free to cheat by using a KitchenAid with a dough hook for the kneading part - frees up a few minutes in which you can chop the toppings!

Repeatability: I will definitely make this again! Nigella suggested that this pizza should feed 4 people "generously". Husby and I ate all but one piece between us for dinner, it was that good!!

Sauciness: Mmmm, yes. I really liked that the recipe used half a tin of chopped tomatoes, rather than tomato paste, for the sauce. Interesting that this is spread on the pizza base before it is baked, and then you put the toppings on and bake again, enough to melt and brown the cheese (mmmm melted cheese!)

Overall pleasure level: Erm, I think mmmmmmmm melted cheese probably sums it up really!

Boston Cream Pie

2009-03-16T21:13:00.005+11:00

This is not a pie at all but a cake ... . ...and for some reason the addition of chocolate brought the word 'cream' into play. - Nigella Lawson

Yes, this is a cake. And it doesn't have cream in it (well, not really). But it does have chocolate, and it does have a custardy filling. And it's a layer cake. What more could you want?

The verdict: It's pretty good in the eating, although the construction failure left me disappointed. The picture in the book shows a very thick, very yellow custardy filling, with thick chocolate ganache just oozing slightly over the side of the cake.

Yeah, my version didn't quite go like that. I guess I didn't cook the creme patissiere filling enough, and even though I was rocking on the chocolate ganache making to 'Born Slippy' by Underworld, I probably didn't beat it enough either. Hence the filling and icing ran right off the cake onto the cake plate. And the table. Sigh. It still tasted good!

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Just Nigella's usual fat-free fare of double cream, milk, chocolate, eggs, sugar and butter (and a few other bits and pieces. Nigella uses her victoria sponge recipe for the cake bit. Who knows if this is traditional, but it works fine - a fairly plain solid-ish cake is probably best I suspect.
Special utensils or cookware: I made the Victoria sponge part using the food processor - last time I made it I did it the traditional way, but I figured I'd try the magimix this time.

That might explain why the cakes turned out somewhat flatter than I would have liked?

Repeatability: This cake is pretty fussy to make - you have to do the cakes, then the custardy bit (creme patissiere) and then the chocolate ganache - the ganache part is done in a saucepan, using an electric hand mixer - optional is the grooving part described above - and so it does require you to set aside some time for the baking etc, and then the construction. But it's an impressive looking thing (or at least, it would be if the filling didn't all run out) and so is a good choice for impressing non-baking guests!

Sauciness: C'mon, anything with chocolate ganache (with plenty left over) is bound to be a bit saucy!

Overall pleasure level: Hmm, 6.5 out of 10 for this. Would have scored higher but for my disappointment after the construction phase.

Autumnal Birthday Cake

2009-03-02T19:50:00.008+11:00

That's a benefit of using this as a birthday cake: you can allow yourself a little ironic leeway - Nigella Lawson

I'm not entirely sure it was ironic that I made this cake for a friend who's birthday is February 29, and who turned 41 this year - I did joke that it was entirely appropriate that I was making him an autumnal cake as he entered the autumn of his years at the junction of summer and autumn!

The verdict: With a cake that uses almost half a litre of maple syrup (in the cake and the icing) I'm not sure why I was so surprised when it tasted almost like pancakes!

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Well, I've mentioned the maple syrup already - quite expensive it makes it too, if you use the real stuff (at least here in Australia!) - but definitely worth it, I think - I'm always a bit suspicious of things like "maple flavoured syrup".

Special utensils or cookware: Nothing special required, if you are a baker and have the required tins! It did have an unusual method (well, at least, one I've never used before) to make the icing. It uses egg whites, maple syrup, sugar and a few other bits and pieces - which is beaten with an electric hand mixer in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, until it thickens like meringue. It was quite amazing to watch the mixture change from a browny syrup into fluffy white meringue!

Repeatability: I've been wanting to make this cake for a while but kept putting it off because it looked a bit fussy and time-consuming - but it's not really that bad at all - I mean, it's clearly not the quickest cake, having to do the cakes and then the icing, but for such an impressive looking cake, it's worth it!

Sauciness: Definitely! Especially the yumbo icing. I really was amazed at the flavour of this cake. And really moist too - very good cake, definitely something a bit different!

Overall pleasure level: I give this an 8.5 - moist delicious autumny goodness!

Banana Bread

2009-02-21T12:16:00.007+11:00

This is the first recipe anyone hesitant about baking should try: it's fabulously easy and fills the kitchen with that aromatic fug which is the natural atmospheric setting for the domestic goddess - Nigella Lawson

OMG I can't believe I haven't baked anything for the blog for over 6 months! - RoseRed

The verdict: Yes, it really is a very good banana bread - I just finished the last piece today, a week after making it, and it was still moist and deliciously banana-y. I've been, somewhat indulgently, eating it for breakfast, but it would be the perfect morning or afternoon tea cake - because it is very cake-y, not so much with the bread-y.
Unusual or substituted ingredients: I'm not sure I've had a banana bread with sultanas in it before - I almost didn't use them, but decided I would, since how would I know if it was a good idea unless I tried it? And it was a good idea, as was the idea to heat the sultanas in a small amount of rum before adding them to the mix - it's barely discernable in the end product, but it just adds that certain something. You could, of course, leave out the sultanas and/or the alcohol if you wanted and I'm sure it would still be an excellent banana bread.

Special utensils or cookware: None at all. I used a silicone loaf pan (love my lovely tupperware) and it came out very cleanly, I suspect it would do the same in a regular loaf pan.

Nigella does ask you, in the method, to combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt) in a bowl and combine it with a wooden spoon or your hands. You then mix the combined dry ingredients into the buter/sugar/egg/banana mix. While I did this, to be honest I can't see the point of combining it in a separate bowl. Next time, I'll just put them all in a sifter and sift them into the wet ingredients. Nigella doesn't say to sift the flour, and there may be a reason for this, but it seems to be a much easier way of achieving a similar outcome!!

(Also, a word of warning and reassurance - the wet mix - butter, sugar, eggs, banana - looks a whole lot like ... erm ... curdled vomit (sorry!) while you are mixing it. But once you add the flour, it looks just like a regular cake mix - so don't think you've done something wrong if it looks a bit off initially, ok!)

Repeatability: I would definitely make this again. I always seem to have overripe bananas, and this is a great recipe for using them up. Like all banana cake/bread recipes, there is an indication of the number or weight of ripe bananas you should use - me, I just use what I've got (as long as it isn't a ridiculously different number) - I don't worry if it is one more or one less banana, it all seems to work out in the end.
Sauciness: Sticky and moist and delicious!

Overall pleasure level: I give this 8.5 out of 10. I do love a banana recipe, especially one that keeps so well. Yum.

Key Lime Pie

2009-01-12T19:46:00.005+11:00

The sourness of the limes sets off its temple-aching sugariness - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: This is a good pie. In a way, it's not so much a pie as a base with some light, fluffy filling that is the most unfilling pie filling I've ever had. Confused? Sorry. I was at first too - really, I was expecting the kind of creamy, citrus-intense filling you get in a lime (or lemon) tart. Even though I read the recipe and saw that you are to whisk egg whites, it didn't quite sink in. The results are good though.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: None. Lime, biscuits, eggs, sugar. Oh, that said, Nigella herself talks in the intro to the recipe about the fact that you probably won't be able to find key limes and that maybe you can get key lime juice but she just uses regular limes. So it's not so much a key lime pie, as a wannabe key lime pie. Never mind.

Special utensils or cookware: You'll need a springform tin and some way to crush the biscuits for the base. I did it all in the food processor then pressed the crumbs into the foil lined tin with the bottom of a container as above. I must say, it was inspired of me to think of lining the tin. She didn't say to do it but I did it because my tin is showing signs of age. It's a very soft, floppy pie, the foil helped it not fall apart completely once it's done.

Repeatability: I'd do this again quite happily but I'd do some things differently. I think I'd cook it longer and I'd aim to do more accurately what she says, which is to make sure the base goes up the side of the tin a bit more. It's a floppy filling - it needs support.

It comes out of the oven having risen like a souffle, but then it sinks down a little. Nigella says this is how it should be. I rather liked the uneven, golden rise on mine!

Sauciness: Very saucy, if, like me, you have a husband who is made infinitely happy by the promise and subsequent cooking of a lime flavoured dessert!

Overall pleasure level: Vastly pleasurable. It's easy to throw together (even with the whisking of egg whites, which is not something I'm thrilled about generally speaking). High pleasure for minimum effort really. We gave it a 7.5 out of ten, because really, it has to be made again and probably even again and again to be perfected.

Butterscotch Layer Cake

2008-11-17T17:45:00.006+11:00

This is the sort of cake that people call 'very rich' but then go on to have three slices with languorous ease - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: This is, hands down, one of the best cakes I've ever had the pleasure to make. It was great fun, taught me a thing or two and turned out perfectly. You can't ask for more.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: For this cake, you need to make caramel before you even start the cake. Not being much of a confectioner, this presented a challenge for me.

I was a bit nervous and in fact ruined the first batch. All that boiling sugar syrup turns to burnt caramel in an instant. Despite Nigella warning that caramel is meant to burn, I don't think she meant this much.

I made it again, and the second time, it was the warm, golden brown you expect. You put that aside and get on with the cake which is one of those lovely 'blitz everything' recipes that I love Nigella for.

She asked for Golden Caster Sugar and I finally figured out that in Australia, CSR produce 'Raw Caster Sugar' which I'm reliably informed is the just the thing. It, along with the brown sugar (she asked for light muscvado) gives the cake a lovely, not overly cloying richness.

The caramel is later mixed with 400g of cream cheese which sounded really, really odd to me but then I'm not technically a caramel lover so I was open to whatever she said to do, even if it did sound odd. Blended together, it makes the most delicious icing and filling.

Special utensils or cookware: I finally got to use the sponge tins I bought a long time ago. That's the only thing, really, that you'll need to get if you don't have some already. The rest is standard.

Repeatability: After a string of Nigella failures, which I haven't documented here because, well, I'm not keen on dwelling on such things, I was beginning to lose faith, but this cake is about as good as it gets. I just loved it. I made it for my husband's 40th birthday - he requested it after we spent a while leafing through books, and it delivered. Make it. It's fabulous.

Sauciness: So delightfully rich, so beautiful to look at - you can't beat it. Decadent and saucy!

Overall pleasure level:

If the amount of times I told the story of this cake at work today is any indication, it's got a high pleasure rating from me. I loved looking at it; I loved eating it; I loved serving it. Loads of pleasure to be had from this special treat. I'm giving it 9 out of ten for all round greatness.

Torta alla Gianduia

2008-08-12T09:11:00.003+10:00

Welcome to our newest Mouthfuls of Heaven team member, Georgie! We're thrilled to have her helping us out, sharing the Nigella love!
Bells and RoseRed.

"Anything that has a whole jar of Nutella in it is already a winner in my book" - Rose Red

Or, if you're from the more working-class neck of the woods, Nutella Cake.

The verdict: A winner indeed. Despite some mistreatment in the form of my temperamental oven, this cake was moist but firm, rich and importantly, chocolatey. Definitely on my make-again list.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: I made the recipe to spec, including a 400g jar of chocolate-hazelnut spread, ground hazelnuts and quite a bit of dark chocolate. Double cream for the ganache topping. All readily available, but not often in my pantry.

Oh, and Frangelico liquer, both in the cake and the ganche topping. Nigella suggests substituing with rum or similar; easily done, depending on preference and availability, I think.

Special utensils or cookware: None. Baked in a springform tin.

Repeatability: Certainly. Go the whole hog with the toasted hazelnuts on top for a special occasion, or just the ganache, or even your regular choccy butter icing with a dash of liquer for everyday. It's a lovely dense, moist cake (being all nuts and no flour), so would keep rather well for several days.

I did break the cardinal rule here though: I didnt read the recipe all the way through. Cooking instructions are for 40 minutes at 180oC, "until the sides come away from the pan"; after that time, it was still very moist in the centre. Yes, the sides had come away, but it was pretty wet in there still. So I gave it another 15 minutes (with 5 minute-ly checks).

If I had kept reading, to the part where Nigella says " unmould the cooled carefully, leaving it on the base as it will be too difficult to get such a damp cake off in one piece." I may have twigged that the cake is supposed to be fairly moist.

Sauciness: Oh yes, very high. Not only are there good bowls to lick, plus an empty Nutella jar, this combine two of my favourites, chocolate and hazelnuts.

Overall pleasure level: Very good indeed. This was given an very solid 9 by those who partook. Bumped up to a 9.5 with double cream on the side. Yeah, baby!

Apple and Walnut Cake

2008-06-25T21:43:00.006+10:00

The cake is lovely, but in an unfancy 'cucina rustica' kind of a way - Nigella Lawson

I've always thought that you can't go wrong with an apple cake (or any kind of apple dessert) - and this cake proves it.

The verdict: This is one great cake. I was a bit worried about it during the making of it, for a whole range of reasons, but it turned out so well, in so many ways!Unusual or substituted ingredients: Nigella warns that walnut oil is expensive - in fact, she says not to buy it specially for the cake, and suggests using olive oil instead - which is exactly what I did! I also did not use the walnuts, as I'm not a huge fan of them. So I guess it's really just an apple cake - although it's not "just" an apple cake! Nigella also specifies using Cox apples. I just used what I had in the fruit bowl - 2 pink ladies and a granny smith. And I think I forgot to put in the cinnamon (whoops!)
Special utensils or cookware: Nothing special except for a 20cm springform tin - which of course I don't have! I've used bigger tins before and the cake hasn't quite worked, so I used my old faithful ring tin instead - and hoped like heck the cake wouldn't stick - I made sure I greased and floured the tin thoroughly! And it worked (phew!)
Repeatability: Oh I would definitely make this cake again - it was a highly successful cake, made for a work morning tea - and it keeps so well, it was also afternoon tea, and then morning tea again the next day. I'm sure it would keep for 3-5 days in cool weather!
Sauciness: I possibly used a bit too much apple - because when I mixed the apples in with the rest of the cake mix, it didn't seem to mix too well - the apple was hardly even coated. Nigella says the mix will be "stiff" but this was ridiculous!! Fortunately it settled, and expanded, nicely when cooked!
Overall pleasure level: This was fabulous, appley, with just a hint of rum and a very nice, moist texture - 8/10 for me!

Rhubard Cornmeal Cake

2008-06-08T09:59:00.005+10:00

'You can never have too many rhubarb recipes in my book - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: I would agree with Nigella on this one. RoseRed might not. But I love the stuff. I actually made this quite some time ago and forgot that I'd taken the photos in readiness to write it up. So my memory may be a little sketchy. I'm hoping the photos bring the memories back. Note to self: annotate recipes more often!

Unusual or substituted ingredients: I recall I did this recipe as written. N o modifications. 500g of rhubarb is a lot if you have to buy it because the bunches are small and expensive I think. I plan to grow my own from now on.

Also, polenta/cornmeal is probably unusual for some people. I seem to always have it in the house but never seem to use it. My attempts at making baked polenta are futile but in things like cakes, I think it works a treat.

Other that that, it's just got the usual suspects, butter, bi carb, vanilla, eggs, sugar.

Special utensils or cookware: None. Just a spring form tin.

Repeatability: I've not made it since but I definitely I will make it again. I recall it was dense and moise, sweet and tangy.

Sauciness: It's more your good, solid cake than a saucy one. With a dollop of cream though....that might take it to another level!

Overall pleasure level: Again, from memory, I think I would have given this about an 8. Maybe more, but without certainty I can't say for sure. Looking at the photo above, I remember the slightly crusty top and those delicious jewels of rhubarb dotted throughout the tender cake. Lovely!

Bells

Roxanne's Millionaire's Shortbread

2008-04-11T08:16:00.006+10:00

Amazingly, Nigella doesn't give any kind of Nigella-esque quote for this recipe. Don't know why, because it is a very Nigella-esque recipe! - Rose Red

The verdict: You know, when I first saw this recipe I thought "oh, shortbread dipped in chocolate. Whoopee". Clearly I didn't read past the first sentence, because this recipe is actually what we in Australia usually call Chocolate Caramel Slice - much more descriptive of what it actually is. Although the idea of calling it Millionaire's shortbread is very apt - it is as rich as all get out! Unusual or substituted ingredients: Nothing unusual. Just sweet sweet sweet - condensed milk, golden syrup, chocolate. Plus flour, butter and sugar for the shortbread. And because milk chocolate could not be decadent enough, I used dark chocolate. But of course!
Special utensils or cookware: Nigella says this recipe introduced her to the concept of both melting chocolate in the microwave, and also making caramel in the microwave. Having never made caramel at all before, I can't comment on the relative benefits, but it was very quick and easy to use the microwave. Nigella cautions to regularly check and stir the caramel to avoid burning it, and I followed this advice to the letter. In fact, I quite possibly didn't cook the caramel enough (about 5 or 6 minutes I think), but it still worked out absolutely fine! Amazing actually, watching the condensed milk caramelise.

Repeatability: Oh, I would definitely make this again. For sure! It is darn hard to cut though. The chocolate on the top cracked and so it ended up being a bit messy. Perhaps if the chocolate was a bit thinner it would be easier. Also, I recommend cutting into small pieces - it really is very rich.

Sauciness: Oh yeah baby! Plenty of bowls to lick with this recipe! As well as the tin of condensed milk (am I the only one who can confess to eating condensed milk straight from the tin? Sometimes my mum would have a tin in the fridge with leftovers, and my brother and I would compete to eat it in secret, a teaspoonful at a time...heaven!)

And you really get your hands dirty making the shortbread - I thought I would never get all that butter rubbed into that flour. But I got there in the end.

Overall pleasure level: I know some people find this too rich (husby wouldn't even try a tiny piece) but for me, it was divine! 10 out of 10. Make it - you won't regret it! (and lest you think I ate it all by myself, I took most of it into work!)

Butter Cut-Out Biscuits

2008-02-29T08:14:00.007+11:00

Any time you want to play supermummy in the kitchen, here is where you start - Nigella Lawson

I admit it, I've been a bad bad baker over the last couple of months. Oh, I've got plenty of excuses, but really, I've just been bad. So I finally forced myself out of my baking rutt, and these are the result.

Aren't they pretty!!

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: None. You should have everything you need in your pantry. Except perhaps a range of food colouring, which is why I've got pink, blue and white (not because I like girl and boy biscuits or anything like that. In fact, kill me if I ever make blue biscuits for a boy's party, or pink ones for a girl).

Special utensils or cookware: A range of cookie cutters is probably a good idea. That way, you won't be forced to use your Christmas shapes and the overly large gingerbread person shape, rather than, say, numbers as Nigella uses in the book, or animal shapes or whatever. Must remember to buy some new shapes next time I'm in the homewares store.

Otherwise, you just wizz it all up in the kitchenaid or with a handbeater, whatever takes your fancy.Repeatability: The mix makes a lot of biscuits - Nigella says around 50-60 and for once I think I pretty much got the number she suggested, or at least I would have except for giganto ginge! You can also freeze the dough ("it makes sense - in a smug, domestic kind of way - to wrap half of this in clingfilm and stash it in the deep freeze until next needed" - thanks Nigella!)
Sauciness: The rolling out of the dough and cutting the shapes is pretty darn messy. You refrigerate the dough for an hour before rolling/cutting. If the weather is warm, keep it in the fridge a bit longer (eg 1.5 hours) and make sure you roll and cut quickly.

And don't roll too thin. Or else you won't be able to pick up the shapes and get them on the baking tray without them breaking. Ask me how I know!
Overall pleasure level: Not only pretty, but pretty darn good, although it's the icing that really makes them! I'm giving them a 7.5.

Flora's Famous Courgette Cake

2008-02-11T20:14:00.000+11:00

If courgette cake sounds dodgy to you, think about carrot cake for a moment; this is just an adaptation of that (though if you feel its safer, don't tell people it's made of courgettes until after they've eaten it). - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: Something had to be done with the zucchinis my garden is producing. Admittedly, this recipe only takes 250g and that big one my hand is on weighs a kilo, but you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, so this recipe was a good start.

With the delicious lime curd luxuriously sandwiched between the layers and a decadent layer of a lime flavoured cream cheese topping, it's a wonderful explosion of flavours.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Well, as Nigella says in the quote above, some people might think zucchini in a cake is weird. I don't. Neither does my husband. He was just glad to see me using one of the monsters! Everything else in the recipe is pretty standard cake fare. Nigella said the raisins could be optional, so I opted not to include them. I'm not really one for raisins etc in cakes.

Nigella also suggested using a good quality shop bought lime curd filling if you wished, boosting it with a squirt of lime juice, but I opted to make the lime curd. It took about 5 minutes. Too easy. Although I take issue with the use of a whole egg.

I didn't get a photo of it, but I would have thought that a custard kind of filling would require only the use of egg yokes, not whites. The whites, even while I whisked it briskly, left trails of cooked white. They weren't noticeable in the eating of the cake, but they disturbed me nonetheless. Next time, I'd just do the yoke.

Special utensils or cookware: This is a two layer cake. Fortunately, I not long ago bought a couple of Victoria Sponge tins.

Repeatability: This, I'm certain, will be dragged out every year when I have zucchinis to burn. It's not time consuming (as you might think it is). There's a bit of a wait while you let everything cool down, so don't imagine you can whip it up quickly before guests come for afternoon tea. Otherwise, it's a winner!

Sauciness: It's saucy alright. Layers of rich, lime flavoured creaminess go a long way towards making this a decadent, delightful and impressive cake. Topped with a smattering of chopped pistachios, it's perfect.

Overall pleasure level: You can't beat it. The cake itself is wonderfully light - some vegetable based cakes aren't. It's a 10 out of 10 for me.

Rosebud Madeleines

2008-01-07T17:01:00.000+11:00

It was the curled in smallness of these tender sponge biscuits, as well as the fact that they're flavoured with rosewater, that made me name them as I have - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: At long last - a joint effort between Bells and RoseRed! And mmmmm, these were delicious! They are in the biscuits section of the book, but really, they are more like little sponges or cupcakes, particularly if you make them in a "normal" sized madeleine tin.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Rosewater is the unusual thing. If you can't find rosewater, you could probably use a bit of orange juice and orange zest, or maybe just vanilla essence. The rosewater really does give a lovely scent and flavour though, so try to find some if you can. Bells found some at an Indian groceries shop. Other than that, standard ingredients like flour, butter, sugar and an egg. Interestingly, not much of any of them. We had our doubts as to whether the mix would make the 48 madeleines Nigella says it would. She's obviously used teeny tiny madeleine tins, because we got 12 out of the mix.

Special utensils or cookware: Madeleine tin. Of which I (RoseRed) now have two, given that I'd already bought one and promptly forgot that I had it, so I bought another one - which I will return, as I really don't think I need two madeleine tins.

Repeatability: I would totally make these again. Possibly with different flavours, just to see how they turn out. They'd be great for a girl's fairy party, given they are so pretty, and simple, to make. Just leave yourself enough time - as Nigella asks you to refrigerate the mix for an hour, then leave it out of the fridge for another half an hour, before you actually bake. Not sure why. Not sure why you can't just refrigerate for half an hour and be done with it. Can anyone shed any light on this? At least you can make them the day before - just don't be tempted to eat them all before the event!

Sauciness: Not saucy - pretty! When they're still in the tin, they look pretty bland but flip them over and you have these gorgeous little shell shapes, all golden and delectable!

Overall pleasure level: These were delicious - the perfect afternoon tea fare, which is exactly what they were made for. Simple and delightful!

Christmas Cupcakes

2007-12-16T19:20:00.000+11:00

These beauties also make a very good alternative to mince pies - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: I'll second the alternative to mince pies view, not being a fan of them myself. These are hands down much better , in my view.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: These are almost a gingerbread cake - mixed spice, sour cream, coffee, chocolate - they're not really kiddie cupcakes. I made these for a grown up afternoon tea and they went down very well.

The cake in the center is Nigella's Spice Cake from Feast. It was RoseRed who was visiting at the time who came up with the idea to arrange them all on one plate and to use the left over white icing to ice the spice cake. Inspired!

I used Orchard White Icing instead of mixing up royal icing and I didn't use cranberries and green icing leaves as Nigella did. I used red and green glace cherries cut up by RoseRed!

Special utensils or cookware: I bought some special cupcake papers for these but other than that, nothing special.

Repeatability: These will be pulled out every Christmas until, well until forever. I intend to make them every year.

Sauciness: Oh they're delighful. I always think of decorated cakes as being a bit more for kids but I felt like RoseRed and I made these into a work of art!

Overall pleasure level: 10 out of 10. Perfect! If anyone wants to make these for Christmas, let me know. I'll hand out the recipe.

Snickers and Peanut Butter Muffins

2007-11-25T07:47:00.000+11:00

These muffins have a special charm: I think the ingredients speak for themselves - Nigella Lawson

These muffins are just another example of what my sister calls "Nigella's insane levels of indulgence" - Bells

And both Nigella and Bells' sister are right - the ingredients definitely say to me "this is insanely indulgent, but just a little bit special". How could it not be with a recipe that contains these:

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: Hey, did anyone know that 6 tablespoons of peanut butter is over half a jar?? I didn't, until I made these! And while some may call peanut butter and 3 snickers bars unusual, the only substitution I made was regular caster sugar for golden caster sugar.
Special utensils or cookware: Standard utensils and cookware all the way. I have to say, it is hard to get an exact measure of a tablespoon of peanut butter (it's just so sticky!) and so I guestimated my tablespoons. I probably ended up putting a bit too much in, which made the muffins a little dry or crumbly, but they were still quite edible!

Repeatability: These were good, but won't be the first on the list to make again, I have to say! Sauciness: Well, come on, how could they not be, with 3 chopped snickers bars!! The caramel and chocolate goes all goey and yum, but the slight saltiness of the peanut butter ensures they aren't too sickly sweet.
Overall pleasure level: Hmmm, this is a hard one. I think 6.5 for these. So very very wrong but so very very right!

Nigellan Flatbread

2007-11-15T20:05:00.000+11:00

Look, the name is meant to be a bit of a joke.....Nigella Lawson

The verdict: I've long wanted to make these partly because I think the name is amusing (she's referring to the black seeds, called Nigella Seeds) and partly because I love the idea of making such a take away staple. I've only ever had flat breads from Indian restaurants and while I love them, I fancied the idea of making my own. But don't worry, I won't be making these each time we get Indian takeaway. That would just be silly.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Being a bread making veteran now, I have a well stocked cupboard for such things, but you'll need to get some instant yeast and Nigella seeds. I found them easily a long time ago (remember the Poppy seed incident?) They're a kind of onion seed, I believe.

Special utensils or cookware: None. Just bowls and baking trays!

Repeatability: I will do these again. And again. And again. They were astoundingly easy because you don't let the dough rise as long as regular bread (an hour at most) and they only take 8 mins in the oven. I made them for a dinner party and as they cooked, I whipped them out and wrapped them all layered in foil to keep them warm in a very low oven. I served them with fresh dips.

Sauciness: I think my guests were incredibly impressed. 'You made these? Seriously?' Talk about a feel good cooking experience!

Overall pleasure level: See above. Huge feel good result. As Nigella herself would say, maximum pleasure for minimum effort. 10/10

Baklava Muffins

2007-11-01T10:36:00.000+11:00

...these taste so good: gooey, crunchy, soft and filling; sticky buns for the slapdash cook - Nigella Lawson

The verdict:

I must have been feeling very slapdash the day I made these because everything just felt right.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: The recipe asked for demerera sugar but I was all out so I just used plain raw sugar.

The wonder of these muffins is that you make a mixture of chopped walnuts, demerera or raw sugar and cinnamon which will later make a kind of filling. I struggled not to eat too much of this mixture myself.

Special utensils or cookware: Just a muffin pan and muffin papers. Sadly, I ran out of all the muffin papers I needed. Who knew you would ever run out of muffin papers when they come in a pack of 200?

After you've made the plain muffin mixture, you half fill a cup, add the filling (Yum!) then add more mixture. Finally, top it off with a sprinkling of the remaining filling.

And yes, I did have some filling left. I hadn't eaten ALL of it.

Then bake.

Repeatability: I can see myself making these many, many times.

Sauciness: Given that baklava is one my personal favourite middle eastern desserts, I think it's pure genius to replicate the idea in muffins. And the true, saucy joy? You pour honey over them at the end of the baking, while they're still warm! Finger licking sticky goodness.

Overall pleasure level: 9 out of 10 for me. Near perfection. I should have got a photo of the inside of them, where the nuts and sugar make a river of sweet, crunchy delight that shows up when you bite into them. Wonderful.

Mini Pavlovas

2007-10-23T07:51:00.000+10:00

It's a palaver, but worth it: they look so pretty people can't stop themselves - Nigella Lawson

One word for these: YUM! And it's not really a palaver, it's actually fairly easy to make these!!

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: Only if 8 egg whites is considered unusual. Now all I need to do is find a recipe which uses 8 egg yolks! Special utensils or cookware: A large oven would be helpful - with enough room for 3 baking trays - or at the very least, 2 large baking trays - this recipe makes 18 mini pavlovas (or 16 in my case, but I could have easily made them slightly smaller!) As always, the KitchenAid made the mixing a whole lot easier!

Repeatability: Pavlova has always been a favourite dessert of mine (to bake as well as to eat!). I thought the recipe I always used (from A Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander, in case you were wondering) was a total winner - but I have to say, I am a big fan of the mini pavlova. I think because you get more crust?
Sauciness: Oh yeah, these were a huge hit! I served them up just with the whipped cream, plus raspberries, blueberries and banana slices on the side, so that our guests could choose their own adventure in terms of toppings!
Overall pleasure level: Even though these aren't chocolate, I do think I have to give them a 10. And because the recipe makes so many, they are like a gift that keeps on giving. Dessert on Saturday night, Sunday lunch and then tonight as well. Mmm mmmmm.

Burnt-butter Brown Sugar Cupcakes

2007-10-14T10:18:00.000+10:00

It's difficult to explain the wonderful resonant taste that burnt butter has, but think of it as a kind of mouth-filling nuttiness - Nigella Lawson

I've always been intrigued by the name of this recipe - it sounds kind of nice (mmm brown sugar) but odd (hmmm, burnt butter?). Looking around for something relatively quick and easy for a girls gathering I thought I'd give these a try. Somewhat ironically, I also burnt the cupcakes, just a little bit...it was a mistake, honest!

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: Golden caster sugar and golden icing sugar are hard to come by and certainly don't live in my pantry on a regular basis. So good old regular caster sugar and regular icing sugar did the trick.
Special utensils or cookware: None! These are made in a food processor - so easy! Although they aren't quite as quick as I thought, in that the burnt butter bit takes a while as you are supposed to wait until the butter re-solidifies after "burning" it. I'm not sure how long that is supposed to take but I imagine hours! So I put it in the fridge for a while and used it runny. I'm not sure it made any difference to the outcome!
Repeatability: Yeah, these were good - if I had enough time I would definitely make them again - I'd clarify the butter in the morning and make them in the afternoon - very easy!
You melt and stir the butter until it is a deep gold colour - this is the difference between regular butter and the now-burnt butter. Leaving it to cool also allows a bit of sediment to settle to the bottom.
Sauciness: These really do have a resonant, nutty taste - the only flavour comes from the burnt butter, the brown sugar and a little bit of vanilla. Oh, and the tons of icing which Nigella has you make - as usual, I made less than recommended and still had some leftover. Nigella directed the icing be smeared messily - so that's what I did!
Overall pleasure level: I'd give these a 7 - a good adult cupcake, not too rich but just a little bit complex in the eating.

My Mother-in-Law's Madeira Cake

2007-09-30T11:22:00.000+10:00

It's just one of those plain cakes you can't see the point of, until you start slicing and eating it - Nigella Lawson

The verdict: I've made this cake numerous times, prior to this blog. I made it again recently when I felt like making something simple and comforting. Read on though and you'll learn about the rather amusing mistake I made.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: The recipe is for a plain, lightly lemon flavoured cake, which came from Nigella's mother-in-law. The plain one is excellent but I like the variation to make it into a lemon poppyseed cake.

Take a close look at the photo above. Not until I was starting to gather the photos for this post did I realise what I'd done.

Do they look like poppyseeds?

No. They're in fact NIGELLA SEEDS! What a scream. I am highly amused by this, not least of all because of the name. I asked Sean if he noticed something odd about the cake and when I explained I'd accidentally used Nigella Seeds (which, if you don't know them, are a kind of onion seed) he said he had not noticed at all. Truth be told, neither had I. We have eaten it drowned in a lemon sugar syrup though, which might have disguised the faint onion flavour a bit!

Special utensils or cookware: None. It's as straight forward as you can get.

Repeatability: I'll make this cake and its variations again and again and again.

Sauciness: It's not so much a saucy cake as a good, simple and very gratifying cake. That said, you can do as we did and up the stakes by making a lemon sugar syrup, heating up a slice of cake in the microwave, dousing it in syrup then adding a dollop of cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A winner, for sure.

Overall pleasure level: This cake is wonderful. The greatest pleasure for me is in the sugary, crispy surface you get by sprinkling caster sugar over the surface before you bake it. It splits the cake open and creates a delightful, light, crisp crust. This is an 8 out 10 for me. Nigella seeds and all. Although next time, I'll make sure it's poppyseeds I've got, not Nigella seeds!

Cream Cheese Brownies - challenge accepted!

2007-09-13T20:52:00.000+10:00

umm, they worked for me... - Rose Red

I just had to cook them for twice the recommended time (40 minutes all up). I hope this doesn't mean I am an evil person...

Cream Cheese Brownies

2007-09-04T20:01:00.000+10:00

What's not to like? - Nigella Lawson

The verdict:
There's nothing to like about this recipe, except for one thing. The way the recipe is written is intriguing.

Nigella writes, in the instructions on how to melt the chocolate and butter, that you can leave it on the stove without heat for a while before it's finished melting because it will continue to 'deliquesce' if left. Gee, thanks Nigella. You help me enhance my vocabulary, even when your recipes suck.

There will be no photos for this post. What you'll get is essentially a rant. If anyone else has made these with success, speak up! So far, my test audience of one (George) agrees with me. Nigella let us down on this one.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Cream cheese. I thought it sounded weird to put cream cheese cubes in the mixture, but I must have liked the idea at least a little or I wouldn't have ventured down this track. Basically you cut up fridge cold cream cheese and plonk the cubes into the part-poured mixture, before covering it over with the remaining mixture. It's supposed to be like a chocolate cheesecake.

Special utensils or cookware: None.

Repeatability: Never. I was making these for an afternoon tea at George's house and I had to turn up empty handed because they failed abysmally. Why did they fail? First of all, she says to cook them for 20 minutes. The mixture has hardly warmed up in that time. Forty minutes later I really had to get them out of the oven so I could let them cool before I went out and they still weren't set.

I let them cool totally and inside, they were still runny. The cream cheese was the problem, I think. Nigella says to use 200g of cheese but once I'd put about 50g worth of cubes in the mixture, there was no room left so I think it was overcrowded and seriously impeded the cooking process.

Sauciness: Zero. I was just angry. We threw the lot out.

Overall pleasure level: I got no pleasure from this recipe at all! I felt like less of a failure though when George declared it hadn't worked for her either.

If anyone else wants to have a go to give this recipe a chance in perhaps more competent hands, go right ahead. If you don't have the book, I'll send you the recipe. Let's get a challenge happening!

Oh and the reason there are no photos is that I was in rather a rush and forgot to take any during the making of them. By the time they were supposedly done, I was so disgusted I wanted to remove all evidence of them.

These get a big fat zero out of ten from me. Nice idea, pity about the result.

Coca-Cola Cake

2007-08-25T16:23:00.000+10:00

It's really just a divinely tender-crumbed chocolate cake - and there's nothing wrong with that. And however odd you might think it, everyone loves it when I make it - Nigella Lawson

And she's right! It really is just a very moist, delicious chocolate cake - if you didn't know it had coke in it, you would never pick it!

I've been wanting to make this cake ever since I got the book. This weekend gave me the perfect opportunity - dessert for dinner with my brother and his family (all great lovers of coke!). And even a glass of the black gold leftover to enjoy while the cake is baking!The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients:
Well, for a start, a can of coke. Not an unusual item to have in your house, but (in Australia at least) unusual to put in a cake. American readers, is this a US tradition or just what we non-Americans might think is popular fare?? I did use Coke Zero though, only because I happened to have a can of that.Also, buttermilk. Nigella says if you don't have buttermilk, which I didn't, you can use low-fat milk and some yoghurt. Since I hate yoghurt, I don't usually have any of that in my fridge either. My mum is visiting for a few weeks and likes it, so she has some. But it's passionfruit yoghurt. I didn't think it would work too well with a chocolate cake that also has coke in it. So I used low-fat milk and a squeeze of lemon juice, which is another alternative to buttermilk.

Finally, golden caster sugar. I knew I should have bought some last week at the deli. Not to worry, just used normal caster sugar.

Special utensils or cookware:

None, except that as this is a very runny cake mixture, Nigella recommends lining the springform tin with foil. Which I did. Even though I was not entirely confident I would be able to get the foil off, or that the foil would even do the intended job.

But it did - hurrah! I would recommend gettting extra wide foil, so you only need one piece for the whole cake tin. Otherwise, the mix slips under the join in the foil. Not to worry, cook's treat!
Repeatability:
I would definitely make this cake again - very moist and chocolately. As usual though, Nigella's icing mix could be halved and you would probably still have leftover icing. She must spread it on soooo thick! Too sweet for me!

Sauciness:
Mmmm, this is one good cake. But not much left to lick out of the bowl, since it is so runny! But not to worry, lots of leftover icing!!

Overall pleasure level:
Oh very good - not really a novelty cake at all! I'll give this a 9 out of 10!

Blueberry Muffins

2007-08-20T19:34:00.000+10:00

That dry mass of aerated wodge in cellophane isn't the sort of muffin you want for your breakfast; these are - Nigella Lawson

The verdict:
In the above quote, Nigella is referring to her indifference to those big, puffy, commercially produced monsters you get in shops and lesser cafes. I'm not a fan of those either. I am always disappointed. I think that's why I didn't feel necessarily attracted to this recipe at first. I thought, meh, muffins, what's the big deal.

But then I changed my mind. Inexplicably. And it was a good thing.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: I've never made muffins before that have buttermilk in them. And I didn't this time either. Nigella gives you the choice of either 200ml of buttermilk or a combination of 100ml milk and 100g natural yoghurt.

When it came down to it, I could have either defrosted a 600ml carton of buttermilk or used up a close to use by date tub of natural yoghurt. No question. I thought i'd save the buttermilk version until I have a small amount of the stuff to use up some time.

I also used frozen blueberries instead of fresh. $7 a punnet? I think not. Especially when I would have needed two punnets.

I also added a sprinkling of coffee sugar crystals for that added sweet crunch on the top. See below. It worked really well!

Special utensils or cookware: None at all.

Repeatability: Oh definitely. You can be sure of that. The yoghurt/milk combination made these so light. Not in the fluffy, aerated way of their commercial counterparts, but in that oh so light, just floating out of the oven kind of way.

Sauciness: I think these are saucy. But I wouldn't have said so before. When your husband has three in quick succession, declaring them 'bloody fantastic', then you're on a winner.

An amusing aside; I was making these on Sunday morning and I asked Sean if he minded that I was making muffins for breakfast rather than something involving bacon like I might normally do. He said, 'You're just making them for the blog and hoping I'll just cope.'

Sprung! The truth is, he did cope. He'd have eaten the lot if I'd let him. But he would have had to fight me for them.

Overall pleasure level: See above anecdote. 10 out of 10. The perfect muffin!

Pizza Rustica

2007-08-08T17:33:00.000+10:00

Pizza Rustica is not a pizza in the way that we've come to understand it, although anyone who has spent time in Italy might well have come across it - Nigella Lawson

The verdict:
I'd longed to make this pie since I got this book. It just looked so fulfilling, so densely packed with fabulously rich and decadent ingredients.

My father in law was visiting and thought I was nuts for taking photos of the process. He thought I was even more nuts when I told him I was putting the photos on the internet! Never mind.

Anyway, my Pizza Rustica was ever so slightly disappointing, but I think I figured out how to fix that for next time. I'll leave out the vast quantities of provolone cheese, and I'll serve it cold.

Unusual or substituted ingredients:
This pie is crammed full of ingredients I've not bought in a long time. Nigella explains that the ingredients are rustica if you're in Italy. Not so much for the rest of us. Slabs of mozzarella, smoked provolone, mortadella, proscuitto make for a fun trip to the deli. I used sausages that were called 'Traditional Italian' but were made by a local Canberra butcher. I knew they were good pork sausages, very peppery.

Special utensils or cookware:
None. Just the spring form tin - a real staple for Nigella.

Maybe we should have a section on 'special skills required' because skill with pastry is something I lack.

Repeatability:
With this much cheese, butter and deli meat in it, I don't think I'll make this too often. It's jam packed with artery hardening goodness. And if I repeat it, I'll cut down on the provolone cheese. It was incredibly salty and i found that really detracted from the pie.

But it's a lot of fun to compile all the ingredients and then construct the pie - even though I treat pie crust construction like a patchwork quilt, filling in bits with additional scraps of pastry!

Sauciness:
You just know, once you've made it this far, that you can't go wrong, really. It's going to come out beautiful. It's great, plump masterpiece, I think. It was as high and as full as I hoped it would be.

Overall pleasure level:
Apart from the irritating saltiness I mentioned earlier, I thought this was a magnificent pie. Nigella warns that it tastes better at room temperature, or cold, but we were impatient and ate it hot. The cheese just spilled out of it.

However, the next day, I had a slab of the pie for lunch at work and straight out of the fridge, I thought it was absolutely marvellous. I liked it so much better. Sometime in summer, I'm taking one of these with a bottle of something very good and cold on a picnic and I'm going to love it.

Bells

Peanut Butter and Jam Jewels

2007-08-02T17:05:00.000+10:00

They look beautiful, like the sort of jewels worn by fairy-tale princesses - Nigella Lawson

Heh! If you are Princess Fiona maybe!

The verdict:

Unusual or substituted ingredients: I used plum jam on half and peach jam on the other half (not strawberry as suggested - don't like the pips!). Best to use a fairly solid jam which doesn't have large pieces of fruit in it, as this makes it easier to spoon into the indentations. Nigella says the jam is supposed to go a bit runny and then harden (into the "jewels") but mine didn't do that. It didn't make any difference to the eating!

Special utensils or cookware: None. Just an electric mixer for the creaming. Nigella suggests using your thumb to make the jam indentations, but I found a pate knife with a nice rounded bottom and used that. Even so, the indentations rose and practically disappeared during baking - luckily they are soft enough to re-indent once you take out of the oven. Then you spoon the jam in. I wonder if it might be easier to spoon the jam into the indentations before you bake them (which is what my mother does with her Jam Drops).

Repeatability: Yes, I would make these again. Vary the jam for interest!
Sauciness: More like sticky, whilst cooking anyway - you have to refrigerate the dough for at least an hour after mixing - it is very sticky (yep, peanut butter will do that!!) and refrigerating makes it much easier to manage when rolling the dough balls. And, as I discovered, you can easily refrigerate for a whole day, as I made the mixture on Saturday morning but didn't get a chance to bake them until Sunday afternoon.

Overall pleasure level: Combining one of the best things to come out of the US (good ol' PB&J) into a biscuit is clearly a recipe for biscuity goodness. These are an 8 for me.

Rhubarb Grunt

2007-07-29T18:52:00.000+10:00

I hate rhubarb. You can do all of those recipes - RoseRed

**

A grunt is like a cobbler or a slump: at its most basic, fruit stewed in the oven with a scone-like topping - Nigella Lawson

Cobbler? Slump? Gosh there are some funny names for desserts out there. I had a hunch that the terms would be mystifying to the American readers. I wasn't even sure I knew what those vaguely old fashioned sounding words meant and I was raised by an English woman!

Wikipedia, however, tells me that these are terms that should be known to all of us if we are from English speaking countries.

Right. Got that? Just funny names for fruity, doughy desserts. On we go.

The Verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Rhubarb. I've never cooked with it. I don't remember eating it since I was seven and living in Tasmania. Even then I have no real memory of how it tasted. On the basis of this dish, I'm going to grow it in my garden! I love the slightly acidic, tangy flavour of it.

The scone-y stuff on top wasn't very scone like, if you ask me. It's flour and cream. What a weird combination! Although I guess it had a certain heaviness that you might find in scones.

Special Utensils or cookware: None. I cooked it all in a square pyrex dish. Nigella suggests pyrex so you can see if the rhubarb is bubbling. It worked.

Repeatability: Sure. When I have a massive rhubarb plant in my garden, I'll add this to the myriad of ways I'll be looking for to get rid of it. I think, apart from the sugar and cream, it was probably quite a healthy dessert. OK, a sort of healthy dessert.....

Sauciness: Put it this way. I made this for my father in law and he loved it. I suspect it's of his era. So, it's a good, solid, old fashioned dessert. Not real saucy.

Overall pleasure level: Absolutely delightful, really. The brown sugar, butter, cream, doughy, crunchy top and bubblingly soft rhubarb combines to make a really satisfying winter dessert. Served it with ice cream. I imagine I'll make this one for many winters to come.

Bells

The Essential White Loaf

2007-07-26T08:25:00.000+10:00

I can't let Bells have all the breadmaking fun, can I? - Rose Red

Inspired by Bells' delight in making bread from scratch, and her excellent results, I finally decided to give it a go.Look at that - how good does that look!!

The verdict:

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Just your standard breadmaking stuff - flour, water, bit of butter and salt. And yeast. I'm not down with that fresh yeast business, so I use instant yeast, and (while I've never used fresh yeast) this seems to work perfectly fine, and it keeps in the fridge for ages. And no fussing with little sachets which may or may not give you the right amount. Just measure out what you need.Special utensils or cookware: None. Nigella suggests using a mixer with a dough hook (which I have) but I really wanted to do it by hand. And it's not hard! If I was really busy and making bread, I might use the mixer, but for a lazy weekend pleasure, there's really no need. Except for the kneading bit (heh!! sorry, couldn't help myself). Kneading is fun. I'm not sure if I noticed the point at which the dough is supposed to become smoother and so on, but it seemed to work out ok.As for leaving it to rise, well, that was the hard part - I just wanted to cook it and have bread - I started making it a little too late in the morning - although it ended up being just in time for lunch. The question I had was whether the dough had in fact increased by half it's size again at the end of the allotted time (plus a bit). But I couldn't wait any longer!Repeatability: I would definitely make bread again. This white bread is really so so easy. And so yummy.Sauciness: But yeah, not saucy. As Bells has previously noted, bread is earthy, not saucy. It is a little messy, in the mixing/kneading stage, but licking your bread-doughy-fingers is not quite the same as when you are cooking, say, some type of chocolate delight!Overall pleasure level: Oh, this is fabulous. Making it was a pleasure, eating it was a pleasure. And despite all Nigella's warnings that the bread won't get crusty in a standard domestic oven, this bread was perfectly golden and crusty on the outside, soft on the inside - yum! I think that makes it a 10!

Sourdough

2007-07-22T18:54:00.000+10:00

I know the idea of a long-drawn out tripartite baking process is not necessarily a welcome one, but presumably you do this because you want to, not because you are trying to find time-saving ways in the kitchen and kind of stumbled onto this by mistake - Nigella Lawson

The Verdict
Still on a bread kick, the decision was made to bake sourdough in tandem with fellow blogger, Tanya. She lives in hundeds of kilometres away in Brisbane, so it was long distance tandem baking. She just so happens so be a Nigella fan, too, so we chose the sourdough recipe from Domestic Goddess and set about making it on Wednesday last week. Yes, that's right - it's a recipe that takes days. Fortunately, much of the process is set-and-forget. And is it great? Oh yes it is. Even if Nigella says her version cheats a little.

Unusual or substituted Ingredients: I don't mess around with bread recipes. I do as I'm told so I didn't change anything, but she does give you the option of making rye or white sourdough. I chose rye. Above, that muddy looking sludge is what's known as the starter. That's flour, a pinch of yeast (that's apparently the cheating part - you're not supposed to do put that in traditionally), a hint of milk and warm water. For three days, that disgusting mixture bubbles and froths away. It's living. How cool is that? That's about the most unsual thing I've cooked since starting the project, I think.

Three days later you make a sponge.

That's where you take some of the starter (the rest gets kept as a sort of family pet for future use) and mix it with more flour and you leave that for about 18 hours. It's certainly a drawn out process!

Finally by Saturday afternoon, we got to the proper bread stage. Here's my loaf proving in the sun. It actually had a tea towel over it, but that doesn't make for as nice a photo.

Special Utensils or Cookware: None at all. As always, you could knead with a dough hook, but I like the hand method.

The dough, after punching it down

Repeatability: Well now that I have the tasty starer in the fridge (you have to feed it periodically to keep it alive) I will have no problem making sourdough whenever I feel like it. All I need is the 18 hours to grow the sponge. Hmm...it's still going to be a time consuming effort, no matter which way you look at it. I don't care. This was GREAT! My husband and father in law thought so too.

Sauciness: I don't think of bread as particularly saucy. It's earthy. Not saucy. But not everything needs to be!

Overall pleasure rating: 10 out 10 for me. This was fabulous. I feel a huge sense of achievement for making my first sourdough and it was delicious. I served it with a big bowl of Moroccan Lamb Soup. Perfection!

Bells

Chocolate Cheesecake

2007-07-19T19:02:00.000+10:00

In theory, the cheesecake purist within me shudders at the idea of something so unorthodox - Nigella Lawson

The verdict
I don't consider myself a cheesecake purist so am unsure what is so wrong with the idea of a chocolate cheesecake. Feel free to enlighten me.

I made this to take to lunch with friends and their children and it went down a treat, unorthodoxy and all.

Unusual or Substituted Ingredients
Nigella says to make just a plain biscuit base for this cheesecake but I couldn't resist adding some baking cocoa to the biscuit mix before smooshing them down with the base of a glass. That's a trick I learned a while back. It's a good one.

Special Utensils or Cookware
You'll need a springform tin and a baking tray large enough to hold it. Once the cake is made, you put it in a bath, about 2-3cm up the side of the tin before cooking it for an hour.

It's worth noting that you're supposed to melt the chocolate and add it to the cheesecake mixture, stirring it through gently so you get a marbled effect.

Nope. Not in my house. I tried that. The chocolate, once it hit the cold mixture, sort of turned into flakes so no marbling occurred. I think next time I'd let the chocolate cool a lot more before I tried that.

Repeatability
Oh yes. This is a good one. Even though I would personally like a chooclate cheesecake that was richer (read: more chocolatey) the rich creaminess of this marvel is pretty bloody good. It's quite a wet cheesecake so it's kind of mousse-like in texture. I'l ddrag this one out for entertaining again and again, I imagine.

This is all that was left after four adults and two children (see below) polished it off.

Sauciness
I imagine if served with a greater concentration of chocolate, some chocolate dipped strawberries, appropriately placed whipped cream and you'd have one very saucy dessert on your hands.

Or, if you're a child, on your face. Meet Miranda and Sebastian. I think their faces say it all.

Bells

Meringues

2007-07-16T17:49:00.000+10:00

I've never met a child who didn't like meringues, and they're child's play to make, too - Nigella Lawson

Well, yes they are! Very very easy. And a great way to use up left-over egg white from this (or any other recipe calling for egg yolk/s only).

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: This recipe is so simple that it only has two ingredients (or 3 if you want coloured meringues). Egg white and caster sugar - 60g of caster sugar per egg white. Can't get simpler than that!
While I mostly stuck with the white meringues, inspired by Nigella's description of using the back of a spoon to make "neat nippled small bosomed shapes", I decided to go the whole nine yards and make them pink as well, for added realism (or childish delight, more like!)
Special utensils or cookware: I used the kitchenaid to mix the whites and sugar - meaning this is truly a recipe you can make while doing something else (eg knitting!). Just put the mixer on to beat for about 5-10 minutes and go and multitask! A good way to tell when you've beaten your egg whites and sugar enough is to rub a little between your thumb and forefinger - if it feels gritty, beat some more. You will probably never get it entirely smooth, but the level of grittiness will reduce.Beat until it is a "gleaming, satiny mass".

Repeatability: If I have leftover egg whites I will definitely make these again - the other great thing about meringues is that they keep very well in an airtight container - and they taste good too! When I was making them, my husband asked me what I was going to do with them and I told him I was planning on taking them to work. After he'd eaten his first one, he wasn't so keen on me taking them out of the house!
Sauciness: "neat nippled small bosomed shapes" - need I say more??!!
Overall pleasure level: I hadn't had a meringue for ages before these - I'd forgotten that lovely chewy centre and crisp crust (heh, bet you can't say "crisp crust" ten times in a row!). These are really very good and fun to make to boot! - 8/10 for me!

Pain-au-chocolat Pudding

2007-07-13T08:13:00.000+10:00

It looks beautiful and tastes divine - Nigella Lawson

Just for Bells' birthday - a lovely wintery choccy custardy pud. Mmmm mmmmmmmm.
The verdict:

Unusual or substituted ingredients: This is really a bread and butter pudding. However, unlike your standard B&B pudding, this uses pain-au-chocolates (chocolate croissants) rather than bread and sultanas. As I was buying the ingredients late on a Saturday afternoon in a rush (as I was making it for dinner at friend's that evening) I couldn't actually find 4 pain-au-chocolat, so I bought 3 (from 2 different places) and a plain croissant as well.

Other than that, nothing particularly unusual. Unless, that is, you count half a litre of milk and half a litre of double cream as unusual. That's a litre of pretty creamy dairy in there!! Oh and 4 egg yolks and 1 whole egg. Oh my. I think it's going to be creamy custard! And since I have 4 egg whites left over, my next Nigella recipe will give you a very easy way to use them up.

Special utensils or cookware: None - just a big bowl to hold the creamy custard as you are making it, before you pour over the previously sliced p-au-c that you've put in a casserole dish. Repeatability: This is a very easy dessert - I would definitely make it again. Sauciness: Well, you know with a litre of creamy stuff, this is quite saucy. And once you cook it all together, the chocolate from the p-au-c oozes out into the custard and gives it a delicate, not overwhelming, chocolate taste. Overall pleasure level: As Nigella says: "I can't tell you how comforting this is". It is truly a comfort food. A point or two off for looks (because, really, Nigella - it might look "beautiful" straight out of the oven, but there is no way to serve this to make it look even remotely attractive!

So for me, an 8.

Chocolate-Cherry Cupcakes

2007-07-11T19:07:00.000+10:00

I love their dark, glossy elegance - Nigella Lawson

I needed chocolate on the weekend. I wasn't making anything from this book that didn't have chocolate in it somewhere, so obviously I turned to the chocolate chapter and i was not disappointed. These are delicious!

The Verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients - Nigella recommends morello cherry jam. We looked, admittedly not extensively, but we couldn't find any. Sean, having grown up in the cherry capital of Australia, knew that morello cherry jam would be more tart than sweet, so we tried to find something like it. We didn't really succeed (well, you can't if you don't get to taste it first) so when I found the jam I bought (it was French) was quite sweet, I just used less sugar).

Special Utensils or Cookware - none. This is getting repetitive. I'm going to do a fancy recipe soon just so I can say yes! I needed to scour Canberra for this or that. These are made in muffin sized pans and I have those. So nothing special.

Repeatability - Try and stop me. I'll make these again for sure. They are rich, dense, quite heavy (see photo below for how they sank - is this an indication of heaviness? Anyone know how to remedy this?)

Sauciness - Oh these are very saucy. Especially once you dress them with icing which is boiled cream and melted dark chocolate. It goes on quite thin, then starts to thicken. I reckon next time I'd wait for it to cool a little to allow for easier moulding. Adding the glace cherry on top was just the perfect finishing touch. I'm not even a huge fan of them, but you couldn't not include them and they really added something.

Overall pleasure level - I thought these not-so-little cakes were divine. After my previous failure with cakes including jam in the recipe list, I was skeptical, but never let it be said I don't go back for attempts at learning from past mistakes! These are just wonderful. I had to try and offload them at work though because 12 of these naughty delights was just going to do us in entirely. At work, they were both loved and reviled as being too, too naughty.

That icing really is the best. Make them today! When the cream and chocolate on top goes all chewy and dense, it really is the best. I'm giving them 9, but am not expecting RoseRed to make them any time soon since she professed her loathing of all things cherry.

Bells

Fairy Cakes

2007-07-08T09:50:00.000+10:00

I noticed that the people who really seemed to get excited by [fairy cakes] were the children's parents. I think that it's not until you hit 30 that nostalgia is even a remotely comforting option - Nigella Lawson

I do love a fairy cake - a sweet little ball of light airy nothingness that is gone in a couple of bites - the perfect afternoon tea pleasure for me. No need to worry about cutting slices or even a plate. And even better, they are good. Really good.

The verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients: None - these are as simple as they come. Except for the Royal Icing Nigella constantly uses. What is it? Can you buy it in Australia? If so, is it called something else?? (ok, so I just looked it up on wikipedia - now I know what it is at least). So, not having access to Royal Icing, I just used a standard icing sugar, blob of butter and warm water icing mix, which, in my opinion, works perfectly for these cupcakes - Royal Icing, by the sound of it, would be quite heavy on top of these very light cakes.Special utensils or cookware: Nigella suggests whipping the mix up in the food processor - which I have to say is perfect - love this method - and just too easy. I used the cupcake tray rather than the muffin tray, and so got 4 extra cupcakes than Nigella suggests - I think these are a good size.Repeatability: Yes definitely - perfect for kids and so quick to make. If you've got kids, they would also have a lot of fun decorating these - the options are practically endless! For an elegant touch, use thick icing and sugar flowers, for kids use 100s & 1000s or lollies, and also easy to theme (Nigella uses this recipe as the basis for her halloween cupcakes).

Nigella suggests cutting the top off so you have a flat surface to decorate. This might work if you are using a very thick solid icing, but I think otherwise it might mean the icing soaks into the cake, which in my view would not be quite as nice. Oh yeah, and a waste of good cake (well, except that clearly I would have eaten all the tops...)Sauciness: More sweet and innocent than saucy - but Nigella obviously loves them - if you have seen the book, you will know the cover features a fairy cake (a very elegant white on white fairy cake, but a fairy cake nonetheless!).
Overall pleasure level: I love these. An 8.5 for me. Make them, you won't regret it!

Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake

2007-07-05T08:27:00.001+10:00

This isn't, strictly speaking, a plain cake since it has a form of icing, but I can't help feeling that its loafiness counts for a lot - Nigella Lawson

Looking for a fairly plain, but still special cake for lunch with friends at our house on Sunday, I decided I'd do this cake. And, boy, was it the right choice (they both had seconds - clearly the sign of a successful cake - you don't have seconds just to be polite!!)

The verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients: None - can be easily made with pantry ingredients. Nigella also suggests a couple of variations - eg adding some limoncello to the syrup (which is just lemon juice and icing sugar), or using other citrus fruits like orange and lime, or pink grapefruit. Hmmmm, an orange syrup loaf cake would be go-ooood!
Special utensils or cookware: None - although this cake did give me the opportunity to use two new items recently purchased - most excitingly, my microplane (with fine blade for zesting citrus or grating ginger etc).
Oh my, I cannot rave about the microplane enough. I may have to buy one in every size!!! It is that good. Take a look at this zest:That is gooood zest. Much better than the grater I used to use. So much better!

And the other new purchase - a (what else) Tupperware loaf tin. Pretty. Red. Tupperware. What more could you want?
Sauciness: Lemon, by its nature, is not so much saucy as it is tart (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The use of icing sugar in the syrup sweetens it up sufficiently (although the look of the syrup as you heat it does, I have to say, leave a lot to be desired!
It's not a big cake though, so if you are feeding a crowd, you'll need to make more than one!
Repeatability: I would definitely make this one again - the perfect cake for lunchtime dessert, or afternoon tea. Not overwhelmingly flavoured, but a really good sense of lemon, and the syrup, which is poured over the cooked cake, gives a fabulous moistness, which also makes the cake keep really well (I ate the last piece last night, and it was just as good as the first piece!). Next time, I might try with oranges.
Overall pleasure level: This is a 9. A big ole yummy 9. Especially good with a dollop of double cream (ok, two dollops!).

Pistachio Macaroons

2007-07-01T19:32:00.000+10:00

These are the world's most elegant macaroons - Nigella Lawson

Maybe they are in your world, Nigella. Not in mine. As hinted in RoseRed's last post, some discussion on the issue of macaroons took place before I cooked these. I know she'd had, shall we say, issues with her chocolate macaroons. I told her I was making mine for a special morning tea so it was important they worked out. I can't say I wasn't warned.

The morning tea was scheduled for Sunday morning. The following is a faithful account of my Saturday afternoon Macaroon Experience. Take note of the following photo. It demonstrates how the fiasco macaroons were supposed to look. Pretty good looking, huh? It's safe to say I was entranced by them.

The Verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients - I took Rose Red's advice on this. She shared with me a tale of woe that involved her once shelling bucketloads of pistachios and ending up with blisters to show for it. I bought them already shelled. You grind them up with icing sugar to make a dust, as Nigella says. Then you mix them with the eggwhites. Sounds good so far, doesn't it?

The thing is, meringue-style things are not my forte. I've kept a wide berth between me and them before now. So I did approach these with some anxiety.

Special Utensils or cookware - None. But I do think I could do with some lessons in meringue making. I'm sure I've read that you should whip eggwhites in a metal bowl. Anyone know if this is true?

I should add that Nigella says to pipe the mixture onto the tray. Like RoseRed, I found it wasn't really necessary to pipe, although I did cut a hole in a zip lock bag because I have studiously avoided needing to pipe for most of my life and have, I must say, been quite happy without the experience.

Sauciness - I was ready to kill someone by the end of the afternoon. So no, not a lot of sauciness in these. Why was I ready to kill someone because of fancy biscuits? Look at this.

I had two sheets of these things, one on baking paper, one on a silicone sheet. Both stuck to buggery. They crumbled and broke and shattered. What a waste of $10 worth of pistachios!

Not one of these macaroons came away from the sheet in one piece. Not ONE!

Repeatability - You know what? I may actually try making them again one day. I love pistachios. I love meringue. If I can get these right, they'll be a dream come true for me. But not yet. I'm not ready. I was so bummed by these. I ended up making snickerdoodles on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn, just so I had something to take.

Overall Pleasure Level - It would be a lie to say I hate these entirely. We ended up crumbling them over chocolate mousse that night and they were fantastic shards of sweet, light, nutty goodness. Can't complain about that.

So, I will rate them as a failure, because they were, even if they did taste good. Tasting good is not enough. I want ones like the pretty picture.

Honestly, I think both RoseRed and i probably went wrong in the whipping phase. According to some comments we got on the chocolate macaroons, I think we didn't let the mixture dry out out enough - but Nigella gives clear instructions not to let it dry out when whipping (ie to not overwhip). I will try again one day and whip them like there's no tomorrow.

Bells

Chocolate Macaroons

2007-06-29T08:26:00.000+10:00

the utter gorgeousness of just one mouthful of these...reveals the rank inadequacy of language - Nigella Lawson

And that's probably true, because out of this recipe, which should have made at least 18-20 macaroons, I managed to get 10. Just one bite is all you'll get!

When Bells and I were discussing what we planned to make on the weekend, she mentioned she was going to try the pistachio macaroons, which sound fabulous. But to sound a note of warning, I had to mention the disaster that was my experience with Chocolate Macaroons - pretty much same recipe but different nuts.

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: Not really. The recipe calls for ground almonds. I've no idea if you can buy ground almonds (I expect you can, I just couldn't see them in the supermarket) and assuming they are different to almond meal (which I think they must be, as Nigella uses almond meal elsewhere in HTBADG), I just bought whole almonds, and ground them in the food processor - that sounds right doesn't it?!
Special utensils or cookware: The macaroon mix is supposed to be piped onto the baking tray. So I got out my fab-o tupperware icing ball and used that. I needn't have bothered. The painstakingly piped macaroon mix just blurbed into a dollop sized blob on the tray. So don't worry about the piping, just use a spoon.

Sauciness: Nigella suggests using baking paper lined trays. As I always do with biscuits, I use my tupperware silicone sheets (have I mentioned how much I love Tupperware??!!). Well, that was a mistake. These little suckers were so saucy they stuck to the sheet. So for round two, I thought, well, maybe Nigella's right, maybe I should use baking paper. Heh. Big mistake. Stuck even worse.

Of the 20 macaroon rounds on the sheet, I could use none of them. None. See the white rounds on the bottom of each one. That's the baking paper. Completely stuck. Thanks a bunch, Nigella!
Repeatability: I am not going to bother. I do accept that maybe I did something wrong with this recipe - maybe I should have just used almond meal. Maybe I used the wrong baking paper. I did think I might give the pistachio version a try, but I'll leave that to Bells.
Overall pleasure level: This was a rare Nigella failure. I did get 10 usuable macaroons, and they did taste pretty good sandwiched with the chocolate patissiere stuff (which is basically cream, chocolate and a little bit of butter), but a failure all the same. So it's a 4.

Stayed tuned for the next exciting episode of Macaroon. Will Bells shell eleventybillion pistachios by hand? Or will she buy them pre-shelled? Will she pipe or just dollop? And how many pistachios will she eat before putting them into the mix? And the real cliff-hanger - will they end up in the bin?

Finnish Rye Bread

2007-06-24T20:29:00.000+10:00

It's dense, dark and aromatic in an extraordinarily comforting way - Nigella Lawson

My love of bread making is well documented here. It's safe to say I'm quite passionate about it. So when I announced last night I would make Finnish Rye Bread, Sean, who is in tune with such things, noted that being the winter solstice, something dense and harking from one of the northern-most parts of the world seemed somehow fitting.

The Verdict
I chose to use the cool-rise method that Nigella mentions in the opening paragraphs in the Bread and Yeast chapter. That is, make the dough, put it in the fridge over night and let it rise while you sleep.

Unusual or substituted ingredients - Oddly enough I had both rye flour and dark muscovado sugar in the pantry. What can I say - I cook a lot of Nigella recipes and she calls for these sorts of things. So i substituted nothing.

Before going into the fridge for the night.

Special Cookware or utensils - Nigella says you can use a dough hook attachment for the kneading. I say 'don't be daft!' I knead by hand and can't imagine a time when I won't.

Repeatability - Try and stop me. This bread was amazing. The problem will be NOT making it every weekend to the point of getting sick of it. I'd do the cool rise again too. It does make it a little hard to give it the second knead in the morning but it warmed up in the sun that pours in our kitchen window soon enough.

The bread before it went in the oven - in glorious early morning light.

Sauciness - Oh yes. Making bread is my new favourite thing - has been for six months now so I guess it's not so new. But I am not tired of it. I'd make it more if it I didn't work. I'd do a lot more in life if I didn't work but that's another story.

Overall Pleasure level - Sean and I were in complete agreement. This was the best bread I've ever made. It's dense without being too heavy or too chewy. And it's marvellous dunked into soup on the second day.

Night and Day Cupcakes

2007-06-22T07:30:00.000+10:00

This, like the cream cheese brownies, uses my favourite combination of densely sweet and smoothly sharp - Nigella Lawson

What a change from oat cakes hey! Back to the tried and true chocolate cupcakes (well, clearly not these particular ones, I've never tried them before, but you know what I mean). I do like a cupcake - a single serve size of moderate amount, portable, and very easy to eat. The problem is, how do you stop at one!

The verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients - nothing particularly unusual, except perhaps for the cream cheese icing, which you wouldn't ordinarily expect on a chocolate cupcake. But as Nigella says, it adds a nice dimension to the sweetness of the chocolate (particularly given the loads of icing sugar added to the cream cheese, which sweetens it quite a bit).

I'm not sure if it is proper cooking etiquette to do this, but I pretty much always cube my butter and soften it in the microwave - otherwise it is never soft enough to blend properly (I always forget to take it out of the fridge hours before I'm going to be cooking!) - am I the only one who does this?

Special cookware or utensils - none, except a food processor - this is a very easy recipe, pretty much bung it all in the magimix and whiz until blended. Ok, it's a little more complicated than that, but not much! As always, Nigella suggests using a muffin tin. She must have very small muffin tins. I used a patty cake tin and got the recommended 12 cupcakes, plus two muffin sized ones. If I'd used a muffin tin, I think I would only have got 8 altogether - not enough for a work morning tea, which is what these were for!

Repeatability - I would definitely make these again - nice light cupcakes, not too rich or heavily chocolate but luscious enough with the cream cheese icing to feel special.

Sauciness - mmmm, I enjoyed scraping the food processor bowl clean on these babies! (who doesn't, when they cook cakes?!). With the icing, I made only half the recommended amount, which was plenty for all of these cupcakes, unless you like your icing an inch thick!

Nigella recommended decorating with a chocolate coated coffee bean, or shaved dark chocolate. Not having any coffee beans on hand, and not feeling like I could be bothered with shaving dark chocolate, I was pretty happy to leave these as is. And I think they worked perfectly just so!

Overall pleasure level - both the cooking and the eating was good on these. I'm giving them an 8.5!

Oat Cakes

2007-06-17T18:38:00.001+10:00

There's something very satisfying about making such good, plain fare as oatcakes - as if you're doing something sober and basic and not entertaining yourself with fripperies - Nigella Lawson

I've been away this weekend and at 4pm this afternoon thought, 'Bugger! I haven't made anything for the blog!' And I know that RoseRed's been away so she probably hasn't either.

So I sat down to find the easiest, quickest thing to make in the book, other than Snickerdoodles, which I've made ad nauseum since I first made them.

A-ha! Oatcakes! An easy solution to the problem. Four ingredients, no fussing. Perfect.

Not exactly. Sean's first comment on taking a bite was, 'so what are they for exactly?' It went downhill from there.

The Verdict

I have to say, not even Nigella sounded very excited about these in her pre-recipe blurb. Ususally she goes on at length about the wonder of her chosen recipes. I have to wonder why she included them.

Unusual or Substituted Ingredients - I just happened to have some almost out of date medium ground oatmeal in the pantry. No idea why. I've never used the stuff. Other than that, no special ingredients. Bi-carb, oats, salt and butter (although you are given the option of using lard, and Nigella urges you to try it. Sorry Nigella, this was a last minute decision. I don't carry lard in the house as a rule!)

Special Utensils or Cookware - None at all.

Repeatability - I don't think so. Unless someone can tell me in the comments how these go just fabulously with this or that. They taste, I'm afraid, like pressed cardboard. They're Scottish, I believe. I'm not aware of any Scottish cuisine that's set the world on fire. Apologies to any Scots reading.

Sauciness - zero. Again, I have to say they taste like pressed cardboard. Nigella says making them is sobering. I'll say this for them - tasting these things is a reminder that we can all have moments in the kitchen where we look at what we've done and think, 'how on earth did this ever seem like a good idea?'

Overall Pleasure Level - Taking the shot below was the greatest pleasure I derived from this recipe. I had to do something with them. Cooked, they look just like that photo above of the cakes just before I put them in the oven. I'm giving these 2 out 10. They weren't a failure. They were just pointless. Am happy to stand corrected if someone can tell me there is a way to make these edible by pairing them with something else.

Snow Topped Spice Cake

2007-06-14T20:50:00.000+10:00

Photo courtesy of Sean - he thought the bundt tin deserved a portrait. He was right.

This cake - fruitless, light but aromatic - is the perfect replacement for the standard Christmas cake - Nigella Lawson

I made this for our Christmas in June celebrations last weekend. I think it was the standout part of the meal.

The Verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients None really. Just the usual Nigella favourites like Dark Muscovado sugar and a range of spices that are fairly common like cloves and all-spice. What's special about the cake though is the mixing in of 6 large eggwhites right before it's ready to bake. It makes the mixture look like honeycomb and creates an amazing lightness in the final product. For the first time ever, I'd like to add, I defrosted eggwhites I'd frozen (according to adivce from Nigella I'd picked up somewhere along the way. Who knew I'd actually ever remember to use them?)

Special Untesils or Cookware Oh yes. A whopping great big and expensive bundt tin! I've always wanted one and so must confess it was part of the reason for choosing this cake. Nigella didn't use one with a funnel and in the end I went with one, despite my reservations. RoseRed and the woman at the specialty shop assured me, at the last minute, that it would be ok. It was.

Repeatability Oh yes. I'd make this again in a heartbeat, Christmas or not. In fact, I'll be making it again next month when my sister comes to visit, since she had to miss out on this meal for reasons beyond her control. Not only that, but when you spend a fortune on a cake tin, you want to use it as much as possible.

Another portrait by Sean.

Sauciness This cake is divine. It's rich, but not too rich, and luciously decadent. It also looks wonderfully impressive, I think.

It slipped almost effortlessly out of the tin - here it is, above, freshly tipped out and then photographed by Sean, who thought this cake was a great opportunity for cute photography. I was worried the corrugations in the tin wouldn't translate to the cake. But they did, even the little diamond shapes on the top that you can sort of see above. It was a delight in every sense - oh except for the extra long lunch break I spent trying to find the tin. But you get that. We must suffer for our art at some point, I suppose.

Overall pleasure level Look at how it scrubbed up! Even me, with my very, very mediocre cake decorating skills, managed make it look quite passable. I added the holly for Christmas but might fill it with berries or something some time. I absolutely loved this cake. Best I've had in recent memory - and it's got some stiff competition, let me tell you.

Bells

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Sour Cream Icing

2007-06-12T18:12:00.000+10:00

For some reason, this is the only chocolate cake my daughter likes ... the sour cream provides a wonderful mouth-filling smoothness - Nigella Lawson

Oh, another attack of the hyperbole, Nigella. I thought this cake (or at least, my version of it) tasted too much like packet cake (maybe that's why your daughter likes it!!). The cake was just a little dry (quite surprising for a cake with sour cream) and the icing was too icing-sugar sweet, for my tastes anyway. But fortunately, it is still quite edible (hey, it's chocolate cake after all!) and our friends' 3 year old daughter quite liked it. Especially the icing!

The verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Only unusual in that it uses sour cream. Oh, and golden syrup in the icing (I love golden syrup).

The recipe also calls for golden caster sugar. I think I've seen that here but I couldn't find any on the weekend, so I used regular caster sugar. Maybe that does make a difference?

Special utensils or cookware: None - very easy to make in the KitchenAid. Called for 20cm tins - as you know, I only have 22cm tins. So it just meant the cakes came out a little thin. Oh yeah, and they stuck like a b*tch, even though I buttered and lined the tins. So, should there be a next time with this cake, I'd butter and flour and line the tins. Or possibly use spring form tins. One or the other. You can't tell from the photo below, but the top cake (the upside down one) lost it's bottom. Fortunately, I could get it out of the tin in one piece and "stick" it back into place (badly).

Repeatability: Probably not. I like my chocolate cakes richer than this - more like the dense chocolate loaf. But it's an easy cake to make, perfectly acceptable and a little lighter - probably a good choice for kids, especially smaller kids.

This was the top cake (just after I placed it on top of the bottom cake). Lucky for thick icing which hides the cracks underneath!

Sauciness: Don't lick the bowl from the sour-cream mix. Do lick the bowl from the icing. I think that's all that needs to be said! (Really, it's probably only me that needed that advice in the first place!)

Look, I even got the splayds out for this one!

Overall pleasure level: I hate to say this, for a chocolate recipe, but this is only a 5 for me. Although I do have to admit, it did taste better the second day!

Christmas Decorations

2007-06-09T15:55:00.000+10:00

Of all the Christmas rituals up for adoption, making these is probably the most satisfying - Nigella Lawson

These are very satisfying biscuits to make. I spent a happy Friday afternoon off work making these for our Christmas in June celebrations. They were great fun.

The Verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients - As Nigella often does, she uses Dark Muscovado sugar. I remember when I first started cooking her recipes about 6 years ago, Muscovado sugar was something you only found in speciality shops. Now, you can get it any supermarket. As RoseRed does, I often substitute it with regular brown sugar, but this was a special event so I went the whole hog and got some. It's so dense and sticky. I love it.

Also, as per Nigella's advice at the front of the recipe, I cut down on the 1-2 tsp of ground pepper. She advises that if children will be eating these, you can leave it out, which I did. I might try them some time with the pepper, but given a 3 year old was supposed to be eating them, I thought it best not to include it.

Special Utensils or Cookware - It just so happened that I had some Christmas shaped cookie cutters that a friend gave me last Christmas. So I didn't have to buy anything special for these.
Repeatability - For sure. I would like to make these every Christmas and probably will. I'll also make the holes in them bigger next time. They're designed to be Christmas tree decorations, but the holes I put in them closed up a bit during baking so they wouldn't really be big enough for the kind of string you'd want to use for hanging them on a tree.

Sauciness - They're delightfully satisfying, as Nigella promises. They deliver completely. There's nothing like a tray full of these pretty little things with their silver balls and crisp, snow white icing.

Even lined up for baking they look perfectly adorable.

Overall pleasure level - Like I said, I'll be adding these to my Christmas repertoire. They're wonderful. I'm giving them a 9.5 out of 10.

I'll leave you with this one photo. I spent the afternoon trying to figure what on earth this was? A penguin? Nope. It's Santa. Now I can see it, it's obvious. But for at least a couple of hours, I just wasn't sure.

Granny Boyd's Biscuits

2007-06-07T19:39:00.000+10:00

dark, smoky and melting - Nigella Lawson

Because, you know, you can never have too much chocolate, I present you with Granny Boyd's Biscuits. Deeeelicious on their own, or with a cup of tea. Or, as Nigella suggests, with ice-cream (she certainly has a thing for the biscuits and ice-cream trick!)

(I know my teapot is nude. I need to make a cosy...)

The verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: None - these are quite possibly the easiest biscuits you can make - a stick of butter, castor sugar, self-raising flour and just a leeetle bit of cocoa - whenever I make biscuits with cocoa, I am always surprised at how dark the mixture goes with so little cocoa. I use Dutch cocoa in my baking, but you could certainly get away with the more economical common garden variety!

Special utensils or bakeware: None. The most hi-tech this recipe gets is to suggest squishing them with the back of a fork once you've rolled the mix into walnut sized balls!

When I was a child helping my mother make biscuits, squishing the backs of the butter snaps with a fork was always my job. And let's face, while I don't have the butter snap recipe, I suspect these are exactly the same, except for the addition of the cocoa - which does take them above the realm of the ordinary biscuit!

Repeatability: I would make these again - an easy chocolate biscuit recipe. Next time I might put in a touch of peppermint essence - oooh home made mint slice biscuits!

Sauciness: I think I may have slightly overcooked my biscuits - it is so hard to tell when they are done, because they are so dark (none of that "cook until golden brown" stuff for these babies) as they turned out just a tad crumbly for my liking. I think the saucy comes in if you serve with ice-cream!

Overall pleasure level: Due to the crumbliness, I have to mark these down a little - so a 7. They keep well, are delicious warm (aren't all biscuits!) and are very versatile! And for the observant - you'll note this biscuit served as the model:

Brownies

2007-06-04T19:49:00.001+10:00

I don't understand why people don't make brownies all the time - Nigella Lawson

Perhaps it's because your version asks for 500g (or 17 ounces) of caster sugar, Nigella! No one in their right mind would eat that much sugar too often, would they? I mean, some of us might LIKE to, but would we do it?

I'm not an experienced Brownie maker, so this was only my second foray into their chocolatey goodness. My first foray was with the exact same recipe. So it must be a good one, except for that not so small amount of sugar issue...

The Verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: None. Nigella says the walnuts are optional. I added them but I didn't chop them so they were really big. I think I'd chop them next time.

Also, as already mentioned, there is way more sugar than needed in this recipe. 500g/17 ounces, when you consider there's already nearly 400g of sweet cooking chocolate in it, is just absurd. There was no way I was doing that.

Special Utensils or Cookware: None at all. This is the best kind of recipe. Open your cupboard. You're bound to find everything you need already, if you already bake.

Repeatability: No problem. I'll do these again any time. I'm particularly keen to try Nigella's suggested variations, like adding other kinds of nuts, or substituting half the nuts with dried cherries, or white chocolate chips, or shredded coconut. I like the sound of all of those!

Sauciness: I think 2 huge blocks of chocolate and a bunch of nuts and then stacking a big pile of them up on your best Villeroy and Boch blue glass plate with candles makes for a decadent and beautiful treat. Thumbs up from me.

Overall pleasure level: I'm giving them a 7. I do like them a lot and will continue to experiment.

Lest any of you worry about how Sean and I are going to get through that enormous stack, rest assured most of them are gone, but not into our tummies. No, I sent loads of them to work with Sean so that a bunch of public servants could have a calorie fix at morning tea. I believe they went down a treat.

Victoria Sponge

2007-06-03T09:00:00.000+10:00

a Victoria sponge filled with cream, fruit and maybe a little good jam, does work. It's a reminder that, when the ingredients are good and the cake tenderly fresh, this is one of the dreamiest combinations in the world - Nigella Lawson

I've had this cake on my "to make" list for some time, but have always been scared. My only previous experience with sponge cake resulted in a sunken, hard, almost green (don't know how that happened!) inedible cake. Of course, that was about 20 years ago...
The ABC documentary about the CWA ("Not all tea and scones") along with the recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald about sponge cakes, reminded me of my plans to make this cake. And scared me a bit too. It was only when I was making it last weekend while Mum was staying, that I realised that a Victoria sponge and a traditional sponge are quite different! A Victoria sponge is made with butter (almost a whole stick!) and is not quite as light and airy as a traditional sponge (trivia fact: it is called Victoria sponge as apparently it was Queen Victoria's favourite cake!). So really, this cake is a lot easier to get right than a traditional sponge, which I will try again soon. (Also a true Victoria sponge doesn't have cream and fruit on top, only in the middle, with a dusting of icing sugar on the top. But that doesn't sound very practical to me - all the cream would ooze out of the middle when you cut it - very messy and a waste of perfectly good cream!)

The verdict
Unusual or substitued ingredients: None. This is a very straightforward cake recipe. Everyone always advises to use the freshest eggs you can for a good sponge - we bought some recently from a roadside market so I figured these would be far fresher than supermarket eggs.
Special utensils or cookware: Nigella makes her cake batter in a food processor (shock! horror!). She also gives instructions for traditional method, which I used, being a bit of stickler for tradition (when it suits me, anyway!). It is very easy to make either way. You also need 2 sandwich tins. Nigella recommends 21cm diameter tins. I could only find 22cm diameter tins. That was ok, just the cakes were perhaps slightly more flat than they should have been, but still fine.
Repeatability: I would definitely make this again, particularly if I was having people over for afternoon tea - who doesn't feel more like a domestic goddess than when they are serving up a sponge cake with jam and cream! And it keeps fairly well (unlike a traditional sponge) so eats well the next day (in the unlikely event there are leftovers!). Nigella also gives lots of variations on the recipe, so you can mix it up and avoid boredom!

Sauciness: Well, you can't get much more "apple pie and icecream" than this (except for, I guess, apple pie and icecream!). But then again, anything with a bit of jam and a dollop of cream is just a little saucy! And as for dishes, not bad, not bad at all. Pretty much made in one bowl, then two tins (out of which the cakes came very cleanly - hurrah for greasing, flouring and lining the tins well! There is nothing more satisfying (and potentially scary) in cooking than turning a cake out of a tin. If it sticks, you just want to run away screaming!)
Overall pleasure level: This is a 9. Very very happy with the way this cake turned out. Go on, try it, you'll find it far less scary than you might have thought!

Banana muffins

2007-06-01T08:28:00.000+10:00

Any sort of muffin is easy and quick for a child to make ... small children seem to have an inordinate passion for mashing bananas - Nigella Lawson

As do adults, I'd say! If you are looking for an easy item for your weekend breakfast or brunch, these fit the bill quite well. Simple ingredients, easy to make, fairly healthy, and (for those of you with kids) easy enough for the kids to help with.

The verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Nope - all straightforward pantry items, plus a couple of (preferably overripe) bananas. (This was not a recipe I made after the Queensland cyclone which pushed the price of bananas up to $15-$16/kilo!!)

Special utensils or cookware: Just a regular muffin tin (not a huge muffin tin though!). I also use paper muffin cases, so I don't have to worry about greasing the muffin holes.Repeatability: Yes, eminently repeatable - in fact, I've probably made these at least 8-10 times, sometimes when we want something a bit special for breakfast (well, special when compared to say, toast!) or if we have people over for morning tea, as we did last Sunday, when I made this batch. Not the most attractive looking mixture I have to say, but don't let that put you off!

Sauciness: The sweetness in the muffins comes from the bananas, but also from 2 "oozingly heaped" tablespoons of honey (you won't be surprised to find they are Nigella's words!!). The honey though also makes the muffins a little sticky - most times I've made this recipe, the paper case has not come away cleanly from the muffin (like they usually do with cupcakes), but that's ok, a bit of time peeling the paper off just enhances the anticipation of the eating!

Overall pleasure level: For a simple breakfast, these are delicious! I'd say a 7. They are quite good for you - no sugar, only a little butter, just honey, bananas, flour and a bit of vanilla (and probably baking powder too). And while I've never made them with kids, I can see that they would be the type of recipe kids would enjoy making.

Snickerdoodles!

2007-05-28T19:31:00.000+10:00

You can't help wanting to cook a biscuit with a name like this - Nigella Lawson

She's absolutely right you know. In December last year, the Samurai Knitter was in the middle of a baking frenzy for Christmas. On her extensive list of biscuits (ok, cookies, she's American) were these things called Snickerdoodles. The name makes me giggle. As it should. I found myself humming Yankee Doodle while making them. I've meant to make them ever since. So thank you Nigella, for reminding me to get off my butt and do it.

As a side note, Wikipedia says the name may be derived from a corruption of the German name for 'snail noodles' or Schneckennudeln. Ah, that makes more sense. And sounds better too. I might just call them that from now on.

The Verdict
You know, I'm half inclined to just post the recipe with two words. Make them. They're that good. Nigella describes them sort of half cake, half donut. I think these are about as close to perfect a biscuit as I've ever had from my own kitchen. When I was telling my sister about them on the phone, she said something like, 'oh that is so Nigella. I bet she just deep fried Snickers, didn't she?' Not quite, but I wouldn't ever put it past her.

Unusual or substituted ingredients
None. Just flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, eggs, butter etc. I did find I had to add about 2tbs more butter. The mixture was supposed to be like a batter. It was more like breadcrumbs.

Special Utensils or cookware
None at all.

Repeatability
Put it this way, because we each took a few to work today (I shared mine; a certain husband didn't), we're running low on snickerdoodles now. It's only because I'm blogging now and have a fair amount of knitting I want to do tonight that I'm not baking another batch.

Sauciness
Rich, buttery, cakey, cinnamony sweetness. You can't beat it.

Overall Pleasure Level
Without a doubt, 10 out of 10. I believe my husband had a mouthful of one himself just now when I called out, 'I'm giving the snickerdoodles a 10. Do you agree?'

He nodded and looked more than a little sheepish.

Bells

Sweet and Salty Peanut Biscuits

2007-05-25T08:04:00.001+10:00

If greed alone were the spur and measure, these would be my favourite biscuits - Nigella Lawson

Well, it has to be said, I think Nigella has a little case of hyperbole when it comes to these biscuits. I mean they are perfectly good biscuits, but they wouldn't be my first choice if greed alone were indeed the spur and measure. They wouldn't be my first choice even if it wasn't! But yes, acceptable afternoon tea (or in our case, coffee) fare.

The verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: Despite Nigella loving the charm of the "trailer-trash Trex" (vegetable shortening, or Copha as we call it in Australia) because it makes these biscuits light, I can't say I share her admiration in this case. I used the recommended amount of copha, but I think if I was making these again, I'd probably just use butter instead (even though Nigella warns against it). For me, the biscuits were too light, too crumbly, and I blame the copha!!

Special utensils or cookware: None - you can beat by hand or use mixer (which is what I did - cooking for the lazy person here!!). I do recommend ensuring the copha isn't too hard when you use it as it is quite hard to mix it in - if you look closely at the photo below you can see some unmixed bits of copha.

Repeatability: As mentioned already, not the best biscuits I've ever had. But they are still good, nice and easy to make, you can whip up a batch fairly quickly. Husby seems to like them, as the number of biscuits left in the container is steadily getting smaller each day!

Sauciness: Nope, none at all. Even Nigella's talking up of serving them with ice-cream or as an ice-cream sandwich doesn't make these saucy for me.

Overall pleasure level: Hmmm. I think these can be no more than a 5.

Blueberry Boy Bait

2007-05-23T12:54:00.000+10:00

Aromatic custardy sponge, sweet gooey fruit and meringue, sugar-crisped - boy-bait Brit-style.' - Nigella Lawson

I'm assuming there's some corny story behind the notion of a boy bait pudding. To me it screams 1950s America with girls baking this dish for the dream boy they longed for. A quick google search told me the dish dated back to the 1920s, although Nigella says it was the result of a teenage girl's entry for a baking contest. Anyone know for sure?

Either way, it seemed appropriate as a dessert to cook on a night when we were having a celebratory, romantic night in. Sean got steak with blue cheese sauce for mains, then blueberry boy bait for dessert.

The way to his heart? I think so.

The Verdict
I had two enormous servings of this marvel. My God. I'd say 'words defy me' but let's face it. We all know that would be a lie.

I have to say I was curious to make this pudding, but more than a little skeptical. A base of eggs, milk and breadcrumbs? I was imagining a gooey, sodden lump. Oh no, no. I was so wrong. This one's a winner in every sense.

So what is it? It's, as I said, a base of breadcrumbs, egg yolks (5), caster sugar and milk. You bake that layer first while preparing the fruit and meringue. You make a jammy mix of blueberries for the middle layer and top it off with sweet (very sweet) fluffy egg whites. Heaven.

Unusual or substituted ingredients
I was skeptical about a base made by mixing fresh breadcrumbs into milk and eggs. Nothing unusual about those ingredients as such, but the combination made me unsure. I needn't have been. They're like a bready cake at the bottom and not overly sweet (unlike the rest of it!).

I used frozen blueberries instead of fresh. No problem there.

And don't be put off by the meringue top layer. I've never made meringue before but there's nothing to it, I now know.

Special Utensils or Cookware
Nope. Nothing in particular. As long as you can blitz bread for fresh breadcrumbs, you're going to be fine.

Repeatability
You know what? I'd do this for a dinner party with friends or again for just us on a weekend. It's old fashioned and amazingly so. It's a pudding in every sense of the word. I'd probably cut back on the sugar though next time. It's intensely sweet. Especially the bucketloads that are added to the blueberry mix in the middle. That's just blueberries, lemon and sugar. Cut back a little on the sugar there and in the meringue, and it's perfect.

Sauciness

Oh boy. You can't beat it. Decadent and delicious - and it's got real fruit in it so it can't be all bad!

Overall pleasure level

An absolute delight. Sean loved it. He gave it an 8 out of 10. That slightly crispy, golden meringue topping is the real surprise. I didn't expect that to turn out nearly so well.

And around the edges, later, when you're supposed to have finished gorging yourself, those extra crispy edge bits....well, there weren't many of those left!

Bells

New York Cheesecake

2007-05-20T07:00:00.000+10:00

I ate a cheesecake just like this in New York once - Nigella Lawson

Wanting something that husby's family will like (for our mother's day lunch) I decided upon cheesecake. Husby's mother has made it in the past and I know his brother likes it too, so this was a safe option (although m-i-l doesn't make a baked cheesecake but rather a refrigerated one, if that makes sense).

looks a little dark on top I know - it wasn't that dark in real life!

The verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients: Nothing unusual, except I have to say, I was slightly grossed out when I realised that the recipe calls for over 1 kg of cream cheese/sour cream/double cream all together - oh my that's a lot of dairy and a lot of fat...and that doesn't even count the butter used for the base!!!
I did choose low fat cream cheese and low fat sour cream, and just used thickened cream (my corner store didn't have double cream at 7pm on a Saturday night, which is when I did the shopping for this!). Fortunately, it did have proper digestive biscuits - they aren't really an Australian thing - I usually use Arnott's Marie biscuits, but in this case, used actual digestives, and I think it really did make a difference to the base, which was not crumbly at all (which has been my experience in the past with cheesecakes).

Special utensils or bakeware: You do need a springform tin for a cheesecake, make sure it is the right size, as this is a big cheesecake - my tin was full to the brim of mix once I got that kilo of cream cheese mix into it!
I used an electric hand mixer to mix the filling. Do leave yourself enough time to make it though (I had to get up at 7.30am on a Sunday - a SUNDAY! to make this and I still couldn't leave it in the oven for the suggested cooling time (1.5 hours to cook, 2 hours to cool with oven door shut, 1 hour to cool with oven door open)). It's best made the day before I think if that is possible.

Repeatability: I would make this again. It is, for a baked cheesecake, incredibly light and fluffy. Nigella says the secret is in the whipping of the egg whites (shhhh don't tell!) and folding them into the filling mix.
Sauciness: There are a few dishes with this one, separate bowls for making the base, the filling and the beating of the egg whites. In terms of the eating, it is not too rich, and not too solid or dense (as some baked cheesecakes can be). My 9 yo niece (who "doesn't like cheesecake") loved it - yay!
Overall pleasure level: Hmmm. I think this is an 8.5. Pretty much everyone likes cheesecake so you can't go wrong. Would be good served with berries or coulis (heh, coulis!) or both, and is equally delicious on its own.

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake - mark II

2007-05-17T05:33:00.000+10:00

Bells Bells Bells ... For every swing, there's always a roundabout!

While I do agree this is not an attractive cake (even Nigella warned about that), a little dusting of icing sugar can hide most sins.

Bells has given the verdict, so I won't go into that again but read on for an alternative experience with this recipe!

I can agree that mine was not a complete success, as it did stick to the bottom of the (alleged) non-stick cake tin. I used one of those silicone flexible cake tins - and of course, the high jam/marmalade content made it stick to the bottom, as I should have foreseen if I'd given it any thought. If I make this again, I'll be using a well-greased and possibly floured and lined springform tin. Like Bells, though, I probably won't repeat it. Just because there are so many other options out there, not because it was horrible! My brother and sister-in-law liked it so much they had seconds!
A highlight for me of this cake is the easiness in making it - you will have most, if not all, of the ingredients already in your pantry, and it is mixed in a saucepan using a wooden spoon (or in my case, a spatula) - no need for mixer, handbeater or 5 different bowls. Excellent for shopping and washing up efficiency! You melt the butter, add the dark chocolate until it is soft then remove from heat and stir stir stir. Then you add caster sugar, eggs, pinch of salt and the jam. Then last of all, SR flour. Mix mix mix then bake.

And hey, if you don't like marmalade, you could always substitute another jam - wouldn't raspberry be delicious!

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

2007-05-16T17:54:00.000+10:00

Even if you don't like marmalade, you should try this: all you taste is orange - Nigella Lawson

I'm going to declare my hearty disagreement with Nigella on this one.

I actually made it a long time ago and blogged it then, so what you're getting here is a re-hashing of old material, but in the new format of this blog. I always annotate my recipes and all i wrote in the corner of the page on this one was a bold horrible. Let's see why.

The Verdict
I am neither a fan of marmalade, nor of fruit cakes (my mum makes a good one though), so what possessed me to make a cake that contains a whole jar of marmalade, I don't know. Look at the photo. It doesn't even look nice. The thing sank in the middle and burned around the edges and was just disgusting. You're lucky I'm even posting this. My husband laughs at me the way I hide all evidence, usually, of culinary failures. If I think something is truly awful, the whole lot will be binned before you can say 'I feel slightly ill.'

Special Utensils or Cookware
None. Just cake stuff. Whatever you have.

Repeatability
Not a chance in hell. I'm not even prepared to take Rose Red's verdict on this one that it was great. I think she should do a post of her version of the cake that worked out, just in the interests of balance, because I ain't making this pile of poo again.

Sauciness
Sorry Nigella. Not even you waxing lyrical about it being gorgeously aromatic is going to convince me this cake was a good idea. I think it's fair to say that Page 170 in this book will never be looked at again.

Overall pleasure level
This was a definite low point in my culinary experience. Heavy, burned orange flavour and an hour or so of my life I'll never get back. Disgusting.

I am happy to report though that in my years of cooking Nigella recipes (since about 2001) this is the only failure I've experienced. Given the number of snooty foodies I know who bang on about how none of her recipes work (she's not a real chef, you know), I don't think that's too bad. So I'm just going to write this one off as momentary glitch. Let us never speak of it again (except for in the comments).

I've also included a new label for 'failures' just so we can easily keep track of what worked and what didn't. It'll be interesting to see how many we have!

Bells

Dense chocolate loaf

2007-05-15T08:30:00.000+10:00

... it is the essence of all that is desirable in chocolate... - Nigella Lawson

Oh that it is, hoo boy! If you want a chocolately chocolate cake, then this is the one for you! It is truly dense, truly chocolately and yes, truly a loaf. And unlike most cakes, it gets better with a bit of age (well, a day or two) although it rarely lasts that long.
The verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients: Again with the dark muscovado sugar. Does Nigella have shares in a muscovado sugar factory?? I discovered that CSR now makes "dark brown sugar", which is pretty much exactly what dark muscovado sugar is! Hurrah!

This is the pre-flour and water mix

Special utensils or cookware: None for this cake. I used a handheld mixer to cream the butter and sugar, and then the rest is mixed by hand - somwhat laboriously towards the end - mix in one tablespoon of flour then one tablespoon of hot water, repeat until all flour and water mixed in. Urk. I usually put in 3-4 tablespoons at a time, or else it would take an hour to mix the cake! Do make sure you grease, flour and line your loaf tin though - it is a fairly sticky cake. This is the post flour and water mixture

Repeatability: A big tick on this one - I've made this cake quite a few times, in fact I think it is probably my most-made recipe from HTBADG (followed closely by these). It is the perfect chocolate lover's cake, and very easily transportable (fits my rectangular tupperware container perfectly) and delicious on its own or with berries and cream or ice-cream. I haven't tried it spread with cream cheese as Nigella suggests, but I imagine this could be quite the taste sensation!
Sauciness: Oh yes. Yes yes yes yes yes!
Overall pleasure level: It's a 10. Yes, my first 10! (see sauciness!)

Cheese, onion and potato pie

2007-05-11T08:18:00.000+10:00

This is picnic food of fondest imagination, although actually we eat these for ordinary tea in the kitchen fairly often. I say 'we': that's to say I make them for the children, then snaffle down a couple myself - Nigella Lawson

Lest you think that I only cook sweet things and Bells only does the savoury things, I present you with, admittedly my first savoury from HTBADG, cheese, onion and potato pies!

I was having two of my best friends over for lunch, and so that presented the perfect opportunity to make these pies. Pastry from scratch (not my first time on that one!) and a variety of cheeses (mmmm cheese). They are made with spring onions too, which give a lighter oniony flavour than ordinary onions (and also don't make me cry when chopping them!)

The verdict:

Unusual or substituted ingredients: The recipe calls for creme fraiche to bind the filling (which is basically boiled cubed potato, grated cheddar, red leicester and parmesan cheese and chopped parsley). My local supermarket didn't have creme fraiche when I did the shopping, so I used the same amount of light sour cream instead, and I think it worked just as well.

Special utensils or cookware: I made the pastry in my magimix (mmm magimix) food processor - it is fabulous! But you can do by hand, it's just a bit messier (although perhaps more authentic?). Nigella bakes the pies in yorkshire pudding moulds. Yorkshire pudding is not a big thing in Australia and I wouldn't know what a yorkshire pudding mould looked like if it hit me in the face. I used individual pie/flan tins (the ones where the bottom pops out). These worked perfectly.

Repeatability: I would make these again, but next time would probably add a bit of meat, perhaps bacon. I found them just a little bland. (That may also be because I forgot to add salt and pepper to the filling...). But they are a good vegetarian (not vegan though) option, and as Nigella suggests, they taste good cold as well as hot, so are very good for picnics and the like.

Sauciness: Anything that requires you to make and roll out pastry is going to be a bit messy, but I kinda like the whole rolling out and cutting involved. Although as you can see from the pic, I'm not a great roller. I can only rarely achieve a nice smooth-edged piece of pastry. Oh well, just means I need to practice more!

Overall pleasure level: I'll give these a 6. Worth making and worth making again, but the real pleasure is in the making of these - you can't get much more domestic goddess-y than by making pastry and using a rolling pin (especially if you made the rolling pin yourself in your year 8 woodwork class!) (Ok, you got me there, my woodwork teacher made most of it for me...Hey, a lathe is a dangerous machine! But I sanded it really well!)

Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing

2007-05-08T07:14:00.000+10:00

I wanted something luscious and sweet and treaty: a cake not a breakfast scourge - Nigella Lawson

Well, I would definitely not describe these as a "scourge". Sweet and treaty yes, scourge no. Although I have to say, the mix, before it is cooked, looks a bit, well, to use my husband's analogy, "like something the cat vomited up" (apologies to any readers who may be eating whilst reading this!!).

But honest, while it doesn't look like much when mixing, they do taste delicious. Particularly with the icing - just a hint of lime in the cream cheese icing - which gives these a little extra tang.

The verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients: The recipe calls for grated zest of an orange or a satsuma. Have no idea what a satsuma is (well, I do now, I googled it and it's a tangerine, in the same family as a mandarin) so I just used an orange. Boy was it hard to zest. I really must get myself a zester (and stop saying zest. It just sounds like a wrong word now!). The recipe also uses light muscovado sugar. As I discovered with the gingerbread, this is just ordinary brown sugar. Walnuts are also supposed to be added, chopped, to the mix. I don't like them much, so I just left them out. And the suggested walnut halves to decorate the top of each once iced, I also ignored. They look just a little bit too much like cockroaches to be used as a decoration!

Special utensils or cookware: None. I used a hand-beater and that was fine. See above re investing in a zester though - the recipe uses both orange and lemon zest.
Repeatability: I would make these again - especially for a morning tea or similar - sometimes individual cupcakes go down better than a whole cake. The recipe is supposed to make 12, I only got 9. For some reason, I never get as many muffins or cupcakes out of Nigella's recipes as she suggests. Either the UK pans are a different size, or I put too much mix in each...not sure which!

what do you think? Too much mix in each pan?

Sauciness: These are quite "vanilla" in their sauciness - but a good option for a fussy crowd. Slightly healthy option (well, when compared to, say, dense chocolate loaf - stay tuned for that one!). A fair amount of mess while cooking, but not too much.

Overall pleasure level: I'll give these a 7, for all the reasons described above. Not decadent, but quite luscious. Very eatable.

********************

And for the observant among you, you may have noticed the striking similarity of the first photo of these cupcakes and one of our buttons - see over there on the right...Well, clearly it is because it is the same picture, made very beautifully into a button by Jae - a knitblogger we've never met but who so kindly answered our plaintive plea for assistance on button making with great enthusiasm and who did a fantastic job capturing the look and feel of our blog on these buttons! Thanks Jae - a little thankyou package will shortly be winging its way across the Pacific Ocean to you - unfortunately, it will not contain potato bread!

Bread, hey!

2007-05-07T19:07:00.000+10:00

Heh! Who says I won't make bread?? - Rose Red

What's that, Bells?

Make bread from scratch? Not in a bread machine? But the bread machine is so easy, you can put the ingredients in the night before and wake up to yummy warm bread.

Oh - it's better the real way, and you know, stress relief. And just plain good to do.

Ok then, I'll give it a go...

But not before one more gratuitous shot of the perfectly acceptable breadmaker bread....mmmmm warm yummy bread.

Potato Bread

2007-05-06T14:20:00.002+10:00

'...there's a certain chewiness about it, an almost waxy softness.' - Nigella Lawson

Does that sound like bread? Waxy? I wouldn't have thought so, but now, I know what she's talking about.

Until a friend taught me to bake bread at Christmas, I studiously avoided the bread section of How To Be a Domestic Goddess. Once shown the steps, I was an immediate, evangelical convert to the art of bread making. You just can't beat it. I'm so enamoured of it now that when I'm in a grumpy mood, my husband tells me to go and bake bread. He knows the good that comes from it.

So to potato bread. Nigella says to save both the water you've boiled your peeled potatoes in, as well as 300g of cold potatoes (that was about 4 small potatoes).

Elsewhere in the book, Nigella advocates putting potato water in any bread, not just potato bread. She seems to suggest it improves the longevity of the bread. I don't care. If the bread I made today is any indication, longevity isn't going to be much of an issue. The loaf is half gone before we've even reached the middle of the afternoon!

The verdict

Unusual or substituted ingredients: You can use fresh or instant yeast. I'm pretty happy with instant. It's all I've ever used. I suppose one day i'll try fresh. And it's kind of gross to think of water you've boiled potatoes in as edible, but trust me, it's worth it.

It's worth noting too I used about half the salt Nigella suggests. I've found her 1tbs in other breads too much in the past so I use about half a tablespoon now.

Special Utensils or Cookware: Nigella talks about using a dough hook, if you have one, although elsewhere in the book she extols the virtues of kneading by hand. I think that's because this bread is heavier and wetter than others but I managed fine without a dough hook. I do love kneading, though.

She also suggests using a potato ricer to mash up the potatoes before adding them to the mix. It just so happens I have one, left over from my first flush of love for Nigella. I bought a lot of stuff she said to buy. I used it once and tossed it aside as useless.

I thought it would be perfectly useful for the texture you'd need for this bread though. However, it was tough and stiff and the potatoes were hardened from a night in the fridge so I had to get Sean to do this bit for me. He was cursing it within seconds too. I say, just mash them with a masher or a fork.

Repeatability: I happily make bread all the time but sometimes veering away from standard bread isn't so good. This is not one of those times. I'll never look at potato water or cold, grey potatoes in the same way. This is a delicious, slightly unusual bread. Not in the least bit heavy and not overly flavoured with potatoes. You can taste them, but they really just add to the flavour, rather than defining it.

Sauciness: Bread is less saucy, more earthy, to me. I was kneading away happily when I declared to Sean, hey, I am making bread from scratch with potatoes I grew myself! He could see how my mind was working and said, 'No Bells, we are not growing our own wheat as well.' Damn.

Overall pleasure level: There's certainly a level of smug self satisfaction that comes with making your own bread. I highly recommend it. It's worth it just to be amused/thrilled by the sight of your dough growing at a steady rate in a warm spot in the kitchen.

Now, I'm on a campaign to convince RoseRed to make bread. There are plenty of other recipes for bread in the book and I'm not making them all!

Maybe use the comments to back me up and convince her she needs to give it a go? :-)

American Breakfast Pancakes

2007-05-04T08:20:00.000+10:00

These are those thick, spongy American pancakes that are often eaten with warm maple syrup and crisp fried bacon. I love them with the syrup alone, but if you do want bacon, I think streaky is best: you want a crisp salty ribbon of it here - Nigella Lawson

Leading into the weekend, what more do you need than the perfect easy breakfast/brunch recipe. While I do love pancakes (or waffles) with maple syrup and bacon - there is just something about sweet and salty that I can't get enough of, I usually do these with blueberries or banana (or sometimes strawberries). I can usually get at least 8 pancakes from the recipe - enough for Saturday and Sunday for husby and I, as the mix keeps well overnight in the fridge.

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: None - you can't get more straighforward with this recipe - flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, eggs, butter and milk.

Special utensils or cookware: Nigella suggests the easiest way to make these is to bung everything into a blender and blitz. If you don't have a blender, they are easy to mix by hand (well, a spoon, clearly not your actual hand!!) in a bowl. Use a jug to pour into the pan. Nigella likes to use a blini pan. I don't have one of those (I'm not entirely sure what a blini is!!) so I use my smallest frypan, which is pretty much the size of these pancakes.
Repeatability: Oh yes - I have made these quite a number of times - Sunday brunch - perfect!

Sauciness: Not too messy, especially if you use the blender and jug to pour. Can be messy when eaten - all that maple syrup dripping everywhere!
Overall pleasure level: For me, these are a 9 - a simple pleasure, but pleasure all the way

a big job

2007-05-02T11:25:00.000+10:00

I think RoseRed and I have figured out that this whole idea of cooking our way through How To Be A Domestic Goddess is going to be a huge task.

Preliminary conversations went along the lines of:

Wanna do this?
Yeah!
Shall we start a new blog?
Why not?
And we'll each cook different recipes and blog about them?
Absolutely!
Ok, let's do it.

And now here we are.

We haven't counted how many recipes there are but at a guess, over two hundred.

So if we do one each a week at a minimum (because let's face it, how much time in a given week do either of us have to make pastry from scratch or bake a pie or let bread rise) that means this blog's gonna be around for a while.

So, in the interests of keeping the momentum up, we'll be trying a few things in between recipes. We've each written about recipes from the book on our own blogs so we'll copy those posts, in the relevant format, onto this one in quiet times.

And we'll address some comments made too.

On my blog, George left a comment about Nigella's reputation.

"I admit to being somewhat over Nigella's very distinctive "style" (maybe its jus the annoying camera work and too many shots of her licking her lips on the telly program) but have enjoyed her recipes and obvious passion in the past."

I think Nigella is over her finger licking, pouting at the camera style too, George. I read an article the other day, quite a recent one, in which she said she doesn't want to be a blow up kitchen s*x doll. Love it!

My impression is she didn't have a lot of control over how she was marketed in the beginning and by her own admission didn't realise how saucy she was on camera until she saw the first series of Nigella Bites on TV. I haven't seen more than one episode of her Feast program, but she still seems to me, from that one episode, to be pretty sensual when she gets in the kitchen. It's probably just how she is. A woman with appetite, passion and a face that the camera loves is going to be hard pressed to be sterile in the kitchen and less face it, would we watch someone who was sterile? We might as well watch Delia.

So, stay tuned. We're planning our next choices from the book and will be posting them soon!

Bells

Sausage and Spinach Pie

2007-04-29T09:24:00.000+10:00

'A pie is just what we all know should be emanating from the kitchen of a domestic goddess.' Nigella

I cheated slightly for my first official contribution to this blog. I cooked something I've actually made before, but only recently and I didn't do it at all properly the first time (was in a hurry, and hurrying with pie making could have disastrous consequences!)

The Sausage and Spinach Pie comes third in her series on pies made in a springform tin. I liked the idea immediately. I had visions of a deep, heavy construction packed full of fabulous ingredients.

That's kinda what I got.

The Verdict: The combination of spinach and skinless sausage, with great ingredients like sage thrown in, makes for an incredibly tasty savoury pie.

Unusual or substituted ingredients:
The recipe asks for 500g of cumberland sausages. I'm not sure they're readily available here so I just used good quality fat Italian sausages - you want the ones that have actual meat in them, not soggy, mushed up unidentifiable meat product.

The fun part is slicing open the sausages and pressing out the innards. But does anyone want to guess what a shed sausage skin looks like when it's empty of its insides? Best not discussed, I'm sure.

If you've never made pastry, do it. Be not afraid!

Nigella's pie pastry is very good and very easy. Bung it all in the food processor, blitz, wrap in gladwrap and then 30 minutes later, roll it out in the pie dish/tin. The amount the recipe makes is not a lot, so it forces you to roll it out quite thin so you don't end up with a heavy, sodden base. It's an incredibly light pie crust. I don't know if it's normal to add sugar to a savoury crust, but the 1tbs of caster sugar Nigella asks you to add seems to work very well.

Special Utensils or cookware: You'll need a large springform cake tin (mine is 23cm) and a food processor makes the pastry easy and no fuss.

Sauciness: My husband adores this pie. Anything with good quality sausages smooshed up inside it is guaranteed to make him ecstatic and very affectionate. So, the sausiness level of this pie is high!

Repeatability: You bet. This pie, and the basic idea of it, will become a standard in my winter kitchen.

Overall pleasure rating: This one's getting a 7.5 out of ten (ten being 'a mouthful of heaven'). It loses points for being not quite as easy to assemble as Nigella says. It's hard to get the depth of shape you might expect from a pie made in a deep tin. And when I make it again, I'll try harder to reduce the liquid - a lot of liquid came out of the spinach, even though I ran it through the salad spinner.

Bells

Fresh Gingerbread with Lemon Icing

2007-04-28T12:08:00.000+10:00

the lemon spruceness of the topping is perfect with the musky sweetness beneath it - Nigella Lawson

With that description, how could I not want to make this recipe?

Apart of course from the fact that I've never actually cooked with fresh ginger before - I found the grating of it somewhat hard, because, you know, it's a bit woody inside. So I dare say the gingerbread ended up with some stringy bits of ginger, but it isn't evident from the eating of it, so hang it I say.

The verdict:
Unusual or substituted ingredients: For me, fresh ginger - when I was buying it, I couldn't remember how much I needed - for some reason, I thought 200g. Of course, it is actually 2 teasp. of grated ginger. Also treacle. Wasn't sure if you could still buy it, but it's there, in Coles (the second time I looked...). Dark muscovado sugar - sometimes you can get this in the supermarket, sometimes not. I used light muscovado instead (which, I discovered when I opened the package, is just good old brown sugar).

Special utensils or cookware: No - just make sure you use a big bowl to mix the liquid ingredients into the flour (I didn't at first, so had to transfer).

Repeatability: I would totally cook this again. Especially as I have a fairly large jar of treacle which I'm unlikely to use for anything else...

Sauciness: Created a medium amount of washing up (see "special utensils or cookware"!). Also, treacle and golden syrup do make for sticky fingers and spoons, which just beg to be licked clean. And who am I to resist?

Overall pleasure level (1 = bad, 10 = mouthful of heaven): I'd give this one an 8 - excellent eating, sweet but not sickening, keeps well, very more-ish. In fact, I'm going to go and have a piece right now...

Made on: 25 April 2007
Page 236

What she said...

2007-04-28T11:48:00.000+10:00

Couldn't have said it any better myself, Bells!

Now, onto the baking - I've a domestic goddess to become!

How it all began

2007-04-27T23:02:00.000+10:00

Welcome to Mouthfuls of Heaven!

If you love Nigella, hopefully you'll love our blog.

Do you like the title? It's a tad twee, admittedly, but the words come directly from How to be a Domestic Goddess itself and like Nigella and many of her recipes, it captures a certain indulgent, sensory delight that you just can't go past.

What draws you into Nigella's world is the sheer joy she finds in cooking, whether it's simple, traditional comfort food or sensationally rich indulgence. One way or another, there's passion at the heart of it, and most importantly, there's fun.

RoseRed and I each had the idea for this blog independently. When I saw a post from her declaring her intention to cook her way through How to be a Domestic Goddess, I sent her a message straight away saying I, too had thought of doing it and wouldn't it be fun to make it a double act?

She agreed with rather unexpected enthusiasm, and so here we are, just a month or two later, both a little nervous, despite being happy bloggers in our own right, but keen to get up to our elbows in pastry and tell you all about it.

And since our blogs are primarily knitting blogs, we thought we'd join forces and start a new one devoted entirely to Nigella.

What better way to indulge our deepest adoration?

Oh and one more thing, yes, we were each inspired by Julie Powell's book, Julie & Julia, based on her experiences of cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in her New York apartment, and then blogging about it. That's pretty much where the obvious similarity ends though. We're a couple of girls from Sydney and Canberra (who've never actually met!), not New York, and neither of us has a pet snake.

I'm also pretty sure cooking from How to Be a Domestic Goddess is never going to require us to hack into a live lobster!

Bells