Recipes

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

This looks and tastes as if it were incredibly hard work and yet involves no more than a bit of stirring.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I love this combination of cool hummus, hot, lemony-sweet shards of meat and the waxy, resiny nuts.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson

Well, how could I resist? A friend gave me this gorgeously named concoction — hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps in it, of course — a Christmas or so ago, and I have had to appropriate it. She couldn’t remember where she got the name or the idea, so whoever created it, thank you. The recipe below, however, is mine, from distant, delicious memory.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

I make my hot cross buns slightly smaller than is traditional. Don

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Bites

I know that for some people nothing feels more restoring than something warm and unchallengingly bland, but when it

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

A semifreddo is not quite an ice cream, as the name — semi-cold, in translation — suggests. There

Nigella Lawson

This is adapted from the Salty Honey Pie from the Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. I haven’t fiddled much with the ur-version — why mess with perfection? — but mine does have an easier-to-make, no-roll, press-in pie crust, a pastry for those with (apologies to Mel Brooks) Pie Anxiety. I am grateful for the inspiration: this is quite one of my favourite pies of all time. I find the saltiness here tempers the rich, honeyed sweetness, but if you prefer to embrace its intensity head on, reduce the salt in the filling to 1 teaspoon. But in either case, it’s essential you use sea salt flakes, not pouring salt.

Nigella Lawson

I was once in Dean & DeLuca in New York and saw a little chocolate cake decorated with sugar bees. Having gone through a Biedermeier period earlier on in my life, I have something of a weakness for bees, and have wondered for years how I could incorporate them in a cake of my own: this is it. It seemed only right, to make it a honey cake: beautiful, perfect, Napoleonic — though perhaps in a slightly Disneyfied way. You judge.

Nigella Lawson

It is true that I already have a Honey Cake recipe, and one that has been dear to me for many years, but I felt it was time to branch out. I had come to terms with the fact that my earlier Honey Cake doesn’t have actually any honey in it (it requires, instead, the glory that is Golden Syrup) but I also had to conclude that perhaps having a Honey Cake — whose purpose in life is after all to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year — that can’t be eaten by those who keep Kosher, is not the most helpful thing in the world. Last year, I decided to set that right, and this Honey Cake with Dates and Apples is the delicious remedy. Essentially, whatever the ingredients, what matters is that the cake be sweet: a symbolic expression of most urgent hopes for a sweet year ahead. Actually, since there is no mention of bee-keeping in the Bible, is has long been presumed that ‘honey’, as in Land of Milk and Honey, actually refers to a syrup made with boiled-down dates, which feature still in the Sephardi New Year feast. And in the Ashkenazi tradition, eating slices of apple dipped in honey is an essential part of the Rosh Hashanah celebration. It pleased me to bring these components together. They also help, along with the dark muscovado sugar, to create a cake of seductive squidginess. I have forgone the familiar warm (if noisy) gingerbready spicing to let the flavours of honey, apple and date sing out beautifully and clearly, helped along the way by the fragrance of orange and orange blossom. If needed, you could always replace the orange blossom water with another teaspoon of orange juice. I use a pleated paper cake tin liner when making this, which helps with getting the cake out of the tin, and makes washing up easier too. It’s especially useful if you’re giving a cake away as a present. But otherwise, do line the bottom of the tin with parchment and lightly oil the sides. If you’re making this to eat at home, I should tell you that I rather adore it still slightly warm.

Nigella Lawson

This is the cake to make for Rosh Hashanah. Indeed, you couldn’t proceed without it. Many people give them as presents over the Jewish New Year and you are quite likely to end up with more than one of them if you’ve invited people over for dinner. And each one will be a little different from the last. This recipe comes from Michelle Guish, and is her mother’s recipe, and hence is known as Mish-Gish’s Mother’s honey cake in my house. I have to say, I am amused by honey cake that doesn’t have a drop of honey in it. You can eat this cake just as it is — but I love it drizzled with butterscotch sauce.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I love crackling; I love pork scratchings, even in their junk-food-packaged over-salted incarnation, too: this, here, is perhaps the best of both worlds. In fact, these make me so suffused with greedy pleasure, I do grasp why, for some, gluttony is considered a sin. For me, though, it is a blessing. Occasions of joy in life should be greeted with gratitude, not with guilt. A degree of caution is warranted, but only for practical — rather than spiritual — reasons. I’m assuming you won’t be eating these, anyway, if you have concerns about fat or salt; but also, as it says on the packets of pork scratchings I buy, these are “only recommended for people with strong, healthy teeth”. You need to go to a butcher to get the pork rind, so you may as well ask for it to be scored at the same time, to help it crisp up nicely in the oven. Your only responsibility where the rind is concerned, is to store it well. Plastic wrap of any sort will make it soggy, so either put it on the bottom shelf of the fridge still in the butcher’s “peach” paper, or wrapped loosely in greaseproof paper or baking parchment, or just leave it open, in a roasting tin, on the bottom shelf of the fridge and away from other foods. While these are gorgeous to crunch on with nothing more alongside than a cold beer or glass of wine, I do urge you to make the Apple and Mustard Sauce for dippage, too.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

I find this a real life-saver. I make a container full of this and then I just have to whisk in egg, milk and melted butter whenever I need a breakfast