How To Be A Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking [Paperback]

Those who love comfort food have cause to be grateful for Nigella Lawson's book How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Cause, too, perhaps, to wonder that she isn't the size of a house, since baked comfort foods typically encompass large quantities of butter, cream, eggs, sugar, chocolate, nuts, cream cheese and all the other foodstuffs to which with dreary inevitability attaches the deadly word "sinful". But in Nigella Lawson's hands these dangerous, even feared, substances are transmuted alchemically into the healing balms of the goddess, who presides (perhaps a little ironically) over a harmonious kitchen realm.

The recipes are suitably divine, covering cakes, biscuits, pies, puddings, breads, with special sections on cooking for (and by) children and Christmas. Most are sweet, though there is a choice selection of savoury pies and puddings--Pizza Rustica, Steak and Kidney Pudding, Cornish Pasties. The sweet things range from the airy elegance of Pistachio Macaroons, through the luscious spiciness of Norwegian Cinnamon Buns, to the trailer-trashiness of Coca-Cola Cake.

Nigella Lawson's poise never falters, whether she is discussing serving mulled wine with mince pies ("Don't fight it") or a strange passion-fruit liqueur required for one of her trifles ("the most divinely camp liqueur you could ever come across"). She plays a kind of game with her readers, insisting constantly on her greed, but really invoking our own. What a fascinating book: hints of obsessiveness revealed behind the beautifully projected personality of a laid-back voluptuary.--Robin Davidson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

'the bible for the yummy-mummy generation' --The Guardian

'Her prose is as nourishing as her recipes' --Salman Rushdie, Observer

'I love Nigella Lawson's writing and I love her recipes' --Delia Smith

'Cerebral and scintillating advice for the hungry, peppered with wit' --Sunday Times

'Passionate, informative, detailed, bossy and admirably practical' --Evening Standard

The beautiful, bestselling classic that puts baking back into our kitchens and our lives.

'Working mothers must give thanks to Nigella... What sets her apart from every other food writer is her empathy with working women and her realism... Every page of How to be a Domestic Goddess is imbued with warmth' The Times

'How to Eat was sheer joy... Now she's done it again. If ever baking needed pepping up, Nigella does it' Daily Express

How to be a Domestic Goddess is not about being a goddess, but about feeling like one. What this deliciously reassuring and mouthwatering cookbook shows is that it's not hard to bake a tray of muffins, or a sponge layer cake - but the rewards are high.

Here is the book that feeds our fantasies, understands our anxieties and puts cakes, pies, pastries, preserves, puddings, bread and biscuits back into our own kitchens. With a writer's flair and a cook's passion, Nigella brings you everything from brownies to bagels, from gooseberry-cream crumble to double apple pie, from pizza to pistachio macaroons, from festive bake to Barbie cake.

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This gorgeous, deliciously reassuring book is not about being a goddess, but about feeling like one. It taps straight into every woman's cooking fantasy and demonstrates that it's not pie-in-the-sky but a real mouthwatering cake in the oven.

Nigella's bestselling books, How to Eat, How To Be a Domestic Goddess, Nigella Bites (Winner of a WHSmith Award 2002) and Forever Summer, together with her TV programmes, have made her a household name, not only in the UK but all over the world. She now writes occasionally for various publications and newspapers and is a regular contributor to the New York Times. She has two children and lives in London.

ROSEBUD MADELEINES

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. I like them with coffee when pudding’s been just a plate of cheese, but eat them with whatever and however you want. The dried rosebuds in the picture are obviously not an obligatory ingredient: for me, it’s just a Citizen Kane kinda thing.

50g unsalted butter, plus 1 tablespoon for greasing
1 large egg
40g caster sugar
pinch of salt
45g plain flour, preferably Italian 00
1 tablespoon rosewater
icing sugar for dusting
24-bun mini-madeleine tin

Melt all the butter over a low heat, then leave to cool. Beat the egg, caster sugar and salt in a bowl for about 5 minutes, preferably with an electric mixer of some sort, until it’s as thick as mayonnaise. Then sprinkle in the flour; I hold a sieve above the egg and sugar mixture, put the flour in and shake it through. Fold in the flour with a wooden spoon and then set aside a scant tablespoon of the cold, melted butter for greasing the tins and fold in the rest along with the rosewater. Mix well, but not too vigorously. Leave to rest in the fridge for 1 hour, then take out and leave at room temperature for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 220ºC/gas mark 7.
Generously brush the insides of the madeleine tins with the tablespoon of butter (melting more if you feel you need it) before filling them with half the cake mixture (this amount does 2 batches). About 1 teaspoonful in each should do: don’t worry about covering the moulded indentations; in the heat of the oven the mixture will spread before it rises. Bake for 5 minutes, though check after 3. Turn out and let cool on a rack, then arrange on a plate and dust with icing sugar. Repeat with the remaining half of the mixture.
Makes 48.