Recipes

Nigella Lawson

This is a real feast of a store-cupboard standby. I do know that chorizo isn’t a kitchen-cupboard item, but it tends to have a long fridge-life, so I always have some to hand just in case. It’s full of flavour and absurdly fast to rustle up. One to keep in your back pocket!

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

The pomegranate juice mentioned here is out of a bottle, but if you

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

Nigella Lawson

I can never throw away old, overripe bananas, and although I have many recipes for using them up, I enjoy coming up with new ways, and really wanted, here, a proper cake — delicious though any banana bread is. I used rum in the topping, but you could easily use all water, dispensing with the rum altogether. Similarly, should you have no brown sugar to hand, just use regular white sugar.

Nigella Lawson

I love the subtly rich smokiness of tahini, but I have only enjoyed cooking with it since I turned away from the spoon-bendingly thick stuff from my local supermarket, in favour of the more fluid variety, with its more delicate nutty flavour, from a Middle-Eastern shop near me, or online. For those of you yet to discover the joys of tahini, I suppose you could think of this as a chocolate peanut butter banana bread, only made with sesame butter (which is what tahini is, in a manner of speaking) instead. This, for me, is the perfect, not-too-sweet, darkly chocolatey banana bread. You can make a vegan version of this by omitting the egg, and upping the bananas to 350g / generous 1 cup and the tahini to 75g / ⅓ cup. The bread will not rise a lot without the egg, but the taste is still magnificent. Dark chocolate chips should be dairy-free, but do check the packet.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I love an American sheet cake — it’s a great way to feed a lot of people and, in my book, the more people get to eat cake, the better. I’ve simplified what is an already simple approach, so that both cake, and icing/frosting are made in saucepans on the stovetop: in other words, no creaming and multi-stepped process, just melting, stirring and pouring. It’s also easily transportable, making it great — in particular — for bake sales, but also to be borne in mind when you want to go armed to a friend’s house with something sweet. Add any decoration you like to this crackle-glazed, fudgy cake. I’ve used white chocolate stars here, but consider hundreds and thousands, chocolate vermicelli, any manner of sprinkles or even an exotic scattering of pistachios and rose petals.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I’ve encountered quite a few versions of chocolate salame in Italy — coming to the conclusion that it’s really an Italian version of our chocolate refrigerator cake — and although I am not normally a huge fan of the culinary pun, Christmas does seem the right time of year for such whimsical enterprises. And, I admit, the chocolate salame does have a certain charm, especially when dusted with icing sugar, tied like a proper salame with string. (I am grateful here to Jacob Kenedy for his instructions on how to string up a finocchiona in the Bocca Cookbook.) If I can do the stringing up, then you can, honestly, but if you prefer, you can just dust the unstrung salame with icing sugar and leave it picturesquely on a board. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

I do love to plant this chocolate bed of Rice Krispies with flowers! Sugarcraft shops, and some supermarkets, sell sugar or crystallised flowers; and the foil tray I use measures 32 x 20cm, but you could use any receptacle of approx. 30 x 20 x 5cm (approx. 13 x 9 x 2 inches) or 23cm (approx. 9 inches) square. If sugar flowers elude you, please don

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson

I call this a pudding cake because its texture is simply a mixture between pudding and cake, though lighter by far than that could ever imply. Think, rather, of a mousse without fluffiness: this is dense but delicate with it. And it’s heavenly at blood heat, when the gooey chocolate sits warmly around the sour-sweet juicy raspberries embedded in the cake, like glinting, mud-covered garnets. This should be eaten an hour or so after it comes out of the oven. It gets more solid when cold, and loses some of that spectacular texture. If you have any left, wrap it in foil and heat it up in the oven, or warm it up a slice at a time in the microwave before eating it. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

You just cannot beat a pav in my book, and I glory in particular this dark beauty. The crisp and chewy chocolate meringue base, rich in cocoa and beaded nuggets of chopped plain chocolate, provides a sombre, almost purple-brown layer beneath the fat whiteness of the cream and matt, glowering crimson raspberries on top: it is a killer combination.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Christmas pudding isn’t for everyone and, even though I have faith in my pudding’s ability to convert, there’s no point nagging or, indeed, fighting against real, die-hard antipathies. Besides, I have never met a child who likes Christmas pudding, and it seems unfair not to give a treat to everyone. The joy of this is that you can mix it all up in a processor while the Christmas pudding’s in mid-steam (I dash into the kitchen in the middle of lunch to do just that, with ingredients measured out and ready, and basin prepared) then put it into the top part of the steamer, while the Christmas pud steams in the bottom part. Obviously, you can steam it in a separate pan if you want.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

When you eat this cooled, it is like chocolate satin cream and almost shocking in its pleasurable intensity.

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Bites

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

I am willing to believe that a confectioner wouldn

Nigella Lawson · How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

This is a cross between Pears Belle Helene and Eve

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Summer

Nigella Lawson · Nigella Express

This is the ultimate ice cream sundae. Obviously, if you

Nigella Lawson

These are really a homespun version of the famous Reese’s confection of the same name, embellished with gold to give a touch of glitz. Pressing the peanut butter layer into the petit-four cases is not a hard job, just a boring one, and I find once I’ve accepted that, the mindless, repetitive activity can be positively therapeutic. And please read the Additional Information section at the end of the recipe before proceeding.