How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking |
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Nigella Lawson
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Pages: 384 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0786867973
Pub: Hyperion
Pub date: 2001-11
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 370912
Editorial Review:
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
Reader Reviews:
A Necessity if you like to Bake (1/1 people found this helpful)
This is a stalwart in my kitchen. In fact I may have to buy another copy because some of the most used pages are now stuck together and the cover is a distant memory. In this book there is something for every occasion from the simple to the incredibly technical. Each recipe is well laid out and easy to follow and the whole thing is a joy.
The only recipe I have ever had a problem with is the chocolate brownies, but I think that's down to my brownie pan. Everything else I have ever tried has been 100% perfect. The Autumnal Birthday cake is a particular highlight in our family, as is the dense chocolate loaf cake. My particular favourite is the dark chocolate mousse cake, which sounds complicated but really isn't and is well worth a go.
We have also tried many of the savoury recipes. The pizza dough gets regular outings and the savoury onion pie and chickpea and filo pastry pie are brilliant at parties if you're bored of quiche.
Sensible, practical, no nonsense advice from the queen of all baked goods. If you could give this book more than five out of five I wouldn't hesitate.
The Best Yet (1/1 people found this helpful)
I have several of Nigella's delicious books, and this one is the best yet. I only bought it last year, as I'd been out of the country, and having enjoyed the TV series of her recipes, and appreciating the way in which Nigella talks to her readers, offering helpful suggestions and making everything so easy for even a beginner, I was not disappointed. This book can be read like a novel,and the recipes are easily written, and the finished results are shown, beautifully photographed. Try her Brownies, Baklava Muffins and her Plate Trifle along with My Mother-in-Law's Madeira Cake, and wait for the compliments...
Does what it says on the tin... (3/4 people found this helpful)
This is my favourite cook book and you can tell by the amount of pages that are now stuck together!
Word of warning - do not buy if you are on a diet! Most of the items in this book are quite calorie laden and sumptious, not for the weight watching.
Although i make the brownies quite often, the apple kuchen is my favourite and all my workmates will testify its deliciousness!
Nigella's writing style is witty and she definately has a sense of humour and sees the kitschiness in what she does with her often very camp recipes. She is easy to read and has a good style somewhere inbewteen Jamie Oliver's throw it all together approach and and Delia Smith's step by step, precise style.
I have three of Nigellas books and although the others are good, this is my favourite. Buy it if you want to impress eveyone with decadent gooey mouth watering cakes!
Baking Has Never Been So Easy (2/2 people found this helpful)
I love Nigella's style, because like me she's so slap dash in the kichen (no offence Nigella) and so honest "If it cracks wodge it back together" I think is one quote she uses, but the outcome is always delicious. I have owned the book since 2001, my husband bought it for me as I thought I couldn't bake even though I love cooking. This book has given me so much confidence in that area that it's the most worn book in my kitchen. My favourite recipe is the banana bread, which is ideal for using up over ripe bananas. I've taken to making it with 50% extra ingredience to make a good sized banana cake (a small loaf tin simply isn't enough). I have tried most of the recipes now and take them to my weekly mother and baby coffee mornings, usely coming home with an empty tin. The best praise you could ask for, hungry children and tired mothers can be the harshest critics! As the synopsis suggests being a Domestic Goddess is about "Ain't No Lovin' Like Something From The Oven" rather than being a self satisfied know it/do it all.
Chocolate fudge cake of a book! (4/4 people found this helpful)
I adore this book. I often get home from work, kick off my shoes and settle down with this book, and it often takes me 2 or 3 reads to decide what to make. It's written in the most beautiful style, and feels more like a girlfriend sharing her recipes with you than a cookery book. Both the food and the book are total delights, I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Food & Drink -> General
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Hardcover
Books -> Refinements -> Condition (condition-type)