Blooming Nigella ...

[Millie1]

Butterfly cakes recipe ... says to use standard cupcakes recipe, add a teasn of baking powder and that it makes 12.

Maybe I should've known better ... I used it for 12 and now have a mass of spread out cupcakes without peaks to cut off for my butterfly wings and they look a mess.

Lesson learned is next time to do about 14-16.

Okay - got that off my chest now!

Oh what a pain! She's sooooo unrelaible. Would here be a good place to post recipes of hers that actually work - so that we don't all keep wasting time and money.
My vote would be for the baked plums and barbados cream from How To Eat - scrummy.

Baked plums are fantastic. They disappeared amazingly quickly when we entertained a couple of weeks back. Had them with Hill Station vanilla though.
The lemon syrup loaf cake is a doddle and always works (Domestic Goddess) but I use a 2lb tin not a 1lb tin.
Also like the beef and bean pasta from How To in the children's section.
Not forgetting the chocolate pud that splits into sponge and sauce.

Actually there are loads that I have loved and that have worked.

Almond cake in Dom God is sensational, the one made in magimix with marzipan. Also rate her Madeira.
Otherwise, it's countless disasters.
Don't start me on her flapjacks.

I've got "How To Eat" and haven't cooked a great deal from it. The biscuits work well, and I liked the gammon in CocaCola - but the sweetcorn pudding she recommends to have with the gammon is vile, absolutely foul, and took about 3 hours longer than she said to cook.

I quite like Domestic Goddess - but haven't used it much since we've been on a health kick, as everything seems to be double cream, extra chocolate, loads of sugar ...!

Also she has an irritating habit of wanting nuts in EVERYTHING and dh has nut allergy, so we simply don't have them in the house.

Btw the cupcakes - doesn't she do them in muffin tins with muffin cases, which are much bigger than normal UK bun papers [or I think southerners call them cake cases?]

Roisin, yes I think she does do them in muffin tins - that's what I usually use but today I used ordinary sized cupcake/bun tin. Oh well - they taste ok just look a sight!

Ok, her recipes ... Domestic Goddess - banana bread, store cupboard chocolate cake, New York cheesecake, London cheesecake, night & day cupcakes, espresso cupcakes, ginger cake in the school fetes section - all great. From last year's Feast book - cranberry & white chocolate chip cookies are fabulous. Can't think what else I've tried from that book. From her other book (not How to - can't remember name of it) in the Rainy Day section, her meatballs are super and also her recipe for potatoes dauphinois/gratin.

Heck ... I sound like a real Nigella fan!!

Would love her next book to be called "How To Fart" though

But I'm base.

I do her Xmas dinner from How to Eat and it seems to work fine - the timings for the turkey are spot on, the gravy is yummy and the roast potatoes are orgasmic. (I don't get out much).

I can't claim to have made everything in Nigella's books but everything I have tried has been a success. Always get 12 cupcakes that rise into peaks (using ordinary fairy cake cases).

Trefusis, is the choc pudding the one that you do in the microwave? If it is I've had great success with that too, always goes down well when we have visitors and is unbelieveably quick. If it's not the microwave one then I recommend the microwave one.

Although I do agree that almost everything in her books is too high in cals and fat.

Trefusis, I think it is in How to Eat too, the quick section, very successful, makes it's own sauce.

Trefusis, she suggests coating the par-boiled potatoes in semolina (rather than flour) and then roasting them in goose fat. I thought this was just a faff until I tried it last year (lots of goose fat here in Germany) and it really is the bizz. I still get all the timings wrong though - the veg is all cold by the time I dish up and I'd probably think twice about bothering to make bread sauce from scratch. Really - the whole morning spent sweating in the kitchen, and it's all eaten in about 20 mins.

Her standard cupcake recipe is for muffin sized cases. Works a treat for me