Nigella - am giving up forever!

[rebelmum72]

I am not in the UK, so have only come to Nigella via books (bought by friends), magazines and the internet. However, pretty much everyone I know in the UK raves about her, so I have been giving various of her recipes a go over the last couple of years.

But no more.

Not ONE SINGLE THING has ever turned out edible. Not One. Yesterday was the last straw, when I decided to try her yogurt cake - what could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything. I ended up with a soggy, sticky, oversweet lump of half-cooked batter with an "attractive" bumpy burnt crust on top.

I am a reasonable cook and I bake quite a bit. I have no problems following recipes, so how can it be that nothing I've tried by Nigella has EVER turned out ok? Is it just me?

Ok, rant over. I just wanted to let the world at large know that I am giving up on Nigella Lawson FOREVER

Have you had the thermostat on your oven checked - I like her recipes and have never had a bad cake from her books!

IIRC there were loads of corrections to Nigella's printed recipes - could you have incorrect info?

Actually on second thoughts it is probably because you don't wear a silk gown whilst cooking and licking your fingers in a pornographic manner!

have to say everything has worked for me too! SOrry not what you wanted to hear

Ah, that'll be it, MadameCastafiore, the silk gown or teensy cardie or whatever is missing.

My oven works fine on every other recipe I try. Is it possible that every recipe in the book is incorrect??? Actually, even stuff I've got from magazines and off the internet hasn't worked, so it can't be printing errors.

I'm still rather upset about the yogurt cake. It seemed so...simple. You should have seen it though, it was scary.

Well, some things it's obviously been cooking time / heat, but then I do know my oven and can usually adjust accordingly (as I do with every other recipe I try). But sometimes it's just come out tasting bleurgh, way too sweet or fatty or just generally unpleasant

I remember doing a cheesecake of hers (I think the recipe was in Sainsbury's Magazine) and she insisted on a certain amount of vanilla because that was what gave it an authentic taste; so I dutifully (though I admit sceptically) put in said amount of vanilla, and the result was inedible - and this from a self-confessed vanilla fan! I imagine if you tried eating some of those Body Shop Vanilla body lotions, it would taste similar

I tried her express beef burgers yesterday and they were delicious.

BTW - what does IIRC mean???

Wow I have most of her books and have cooked many recipies and they have all come out great.

If you go to Nigella's website, click on the book in question and scroll down to the bottom of the page there will be a link for "Changes in editions of [whatever]" listing all the corrections.

I cook alot from Nigella's books, cakes,bakes and meals and really have never had anything go far wrong. Some flapjacks were a bit iffy once but I'm fairly certain that was me mucking up the quantities, not the recipe.

I am another Nigella fan. I use her recipes all the time with no problems at all.

As far as the vanilla goes, she does specify that she uses genuine vanilla extract, and if you use vanilla essence etc it is much stronger, so would make a huge difference.

Sorry she hasn't worked out for you.

A lot of her recipes have errors, as has already been pointed out, there are corrections on the website. I have had my fair shar of disasters with her recipes. One problem is that she never makes it clear whether her temperatures refer to fan ovens or conventional. Fan ovens can be as much as 20c hotter than conventional so you need to take that into account.

I have found that fer brownies recipe (domestic goddess) needs to be cooked in a larger, shallower tin for it to cook evenly and I would love to hear from anyone who's successfully made her summer fruit custard tart.

Am with the OP, not a single one of her recipes has turned out ok for me, and I usually manage Delia's recipes with no probs! I like reading Nigella's books but no longer dare try her recipes...

i do find her recipes are very variable - recently made her chilli from her christmas book and it was horrid - incredibly heavy.

however - love her old fashioned chocolate cake!

oh and flapjack recipe is definitely wrong - see website link for correct quantities

I find her cooking times to be way out (and have checked the temperature of my oven). Most things I've done take a lot longer than she says. They are edible though.

I've given up on her for the moment - her recipes contain far too much butter and eggs.

Have you tried giving the spoon a blow job first

12stone - IIRC means 'if I remember correctly'

I love Nigella's recipes and for me they work every time !!!!!!

Ah, thanks Thornyrose!

traceybath I made the chilli from the christmas book for a family meal and everyone loved it.....well they said they did anyway

I make loads of Nigella recipes and (generally) they turn out as planned. However, my mother, who is usually a much better cook than I am, can't get anything of Nigella's to work.

I have, over the years, come to the conclusion that Nigella's oven is a lot slower than mine, so I tend to reduce temperatures and cooking times to compensate.

Also, she's tremendously fond of butter, and so I can find some of her things a bit rich for our tastes, so I ramp down the amount of butter she suggests, e.g. her lemon risotto wants you to add huge blobs of butter at the end, which I tend to skip because I don't want to end up in a coronary care ward.

Finally, she says herself that she is 'never knowingly undercatered', and she's not kidding. I made her gingerbread stuffing at Christmas - the recipe serves 8-10 so I halved it given that we had 4 stuffing-eating adults and three small children. Ended up binning loads of it by NYE because we couldn't get through it all.

i am another nigella fan

have all her books and dome loads and loads of her recipies. (especially from domestic goddess and how to eat!)

none have ever failed me yet!

I love her too but wish her recipes didn't have quite so much sugar in.