Nigellan Flatbread

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

...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

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

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

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!

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

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.