How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking |
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Nigella Lawson
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Pages: 388 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0701168889
Pub: Chatto and Windus
Pub date: 2000-10-03
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4417
Editorial Review:
This is a book about baking, but not a Baking Book. The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces is not good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage, but at other times we don't want to feel stressed and overstretched, but like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in her languorous wake...' How to be a Domestic Goddess is not about being a goddess, but about feeling like one. What this deliciously reassuring and mouthwatering cookbook demonstrates is that it's not actually hard to bake a tray of muffins, or a sponge layer cake, but that the appreciation and satisfaction they bring are disproportionately high. The 'domestic goddess' has to maintain her (or his) cool when faced with pastry, too, of course - but with Nigella Lawson's guidance even puff pastry can be pain-free. Here at last is the book which understands our anxieties, feeds our fantasies and puts cakes, pies, pastries, pudding, breads and biscuits back into our own kitchen. This is the art of baking and comfort cooking made simple and alluring for the modern cook - with everything from cup cakes to certosino, brownies to bagels, peach cream pie to pizza, game pie to blueberry boy-bait, from rhubarb schnapps to Barbie cake - not to mention children's cooking, festive foods, pickles and preserves.
Reader Reviews:
A Necessity if you like to Bake (2/2 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 (2/2 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! (5/5 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 AAS
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Hardcover
Books -> Refinements -> Font Size (format_browse-bin) -> Regular Size