Recipes

Nigella Lawson

I have published many recipes for trifle and made even more, and this is the one I return to most, even though it’s the first time I’ve actually written it down. This simple, joyous pile-up of sponge, rhubarb, custard and cream is my favourite of favourites, and it’s time I shared it with you. Don’t get too nervous about the length of the recipe: just remember that a trifle has a few component parts; even if none of those parts is difficult, the whole is necessarily process-heavy. I know that making the custard can be a worry for many, so let me assure you that this is easy-peasy: the inclusion of double cream and cornflour mean that it thickens quickly and smoothly. For me, it’s the hallowed pairing of vanilla-speckled custard and sherbetty-sharp rhubarb that makes this the dreamiest of trifles. And what a beauty, too: maybe it’s because it reminds me of my favourite boiled sweets when I was a child, but I can’t look at the bright-striped combination of yolk-rich yellow and absurdly hot pink without smiling. And I must tell you, too, that the red vermouth that soaks the sponges (along with the rhubarb juice) is a total game-changer. One last thing: while I’ve given precise quantities below, bear in mind that these are based on the proportions of my trifle bowl, which is 20cm / 7½ inches diameter and 13cm / 5 inches deep. If you’re using a wider bowl, you will need to boost quantities or the layers will be too shallow.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

When I was a child, I don’t think fresh cranberries were ever seen in England. For me, cranberry sauce came out of a jar — and my mother was the sort of person who made her own mayonnaise. Actually, I have nothing against shop-bought cranberry sauce (and recommend it in various recipes), but I personally don’t quite see the point: it is ridiculously easy to make, and tastes so much better homemade that it feels like the wrong thing to cut out of your cooking schedule. Having a kitsch weakness for déclassé liqueurs, I love the cherry brandy element (not the sophisticated see-through kirsch, but the rich, red, sweet and viscous maiden-aunt’s tipple), though Cointreau, Grand Marnier, Triple sec or ruby port would be just dandy, too. But you can simply substitute some freshly squeezed orange juice (blood orange juice out of a carton would keep you tonally correct) and be prepared to up the sugar slightly — probably by an extra 100g / ½ cup, but don’t add it all at once — as the sweet liqueurs counter the fierce sharpness of the cranberries. If you’re squeezing an orange for juice, go that extra inch and zest it first over the cranberries in the pan.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Just as with ice cream, the glorious thing about home-made sorbet is that you can make flavours you could never buy in a shop. And the texture is so much better, too: smoother, richer, without all that icy brittleness. This sorbet is intentionally slushier still: a sluicing with Cointreau adds an orangey depth and keeps it all from freezing solid. If you

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

It has been impossible not to notice the growing popularity for that classic of the American South (a region I have a culinary fondness for) the Red Velvet Cake; this is an observation and a personal admission, as my children have requested it for many years recently for birthday cakes (and see my Red Velvet Cupcakes recipe). Actually, I make these — my speedy, weekend breakfast variant, Red Velvet Pancakes — even more frequently. They

Nigella Lawson

Even though I do give instructions below as to how to make these into one big Red Velvet Cake, I like them so much more as cupcakes. Yes, they do use food colouring — and I advise the paste rather than the liquid, as you need less of it to get the requisite ruby hue — but this is one time I don’t let this trouble me. Food colouring pastes can be found in baking supply shops and online, and then you are ready to make a batch of these deliciously pretty babies. If you want to make this as one big cake then know that the amounts below make enough batter for 2 x 25cm / 10 inch cake tins filled not too deep, and enough icing to squidge them together and decorate the top.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

For someone who’s never been to Vietnam, I am piling up quite a few recipes which are Vietnamese in inspiration if not origin. This is a festively toned take on what is sometimes referred to as ‘Vietnamese coleslaw’, according to the great Nicole Routhier in her introduction to the echt version, ga xe phay. This one has the virtue of being pronounceable for those of us who are ill-travelled, and of celebrating the seasonal as well as seasonally evocative colour: turkey takes the place of the more regular chicken and red cabbage stands in for the plain white one. Red onion and radishes are added (by me, too) for flavour and crunch and, yes, colour.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

When the two great Australian food writers, Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer, came to London some 30 years back, I went to a dinner cooked by them; this was the pudding and I remain, all this time later, transfixed by it. It used to be that you could never lay your hands on a quince unless you had a tree, and so it was that the first thing I did when I bought a house with a garden was plant one, though now you can come across them much more easily when they are in season in October, November and December, though you can often get lucky beyond these months. Nothing matches their almost fantastically perfumed fragrance; and after this long, slow way of cooking them, their acid flesh turns to grainy, intense honeyedness, set to coral jelly at their centre, around the shiny black pips, the whole as darkly sticky as toffee apples. Serve these warm-to-room temperature, with a dollop of cold mascarpone on the side. Do note the long cooking time and make sure you factor that in when you plan to cook them.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

This is one of the easiest suppers to make, but somehow, however much I know this, it always surprises me. Not in the cooking, so much as in the eating: I can

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

This hummus can be dolloped onto crostini or toast, or eaten as a dip. And it even serves as a rather intriguing, brilliantly hued sauce for plain grilled meats.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

We are in rose-tinted heaven here: the pink glint of the red mullet

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson