Product Description

Nigella shows that there can be more feelgood mileage from running up a tray of muffins or baking a sponge cake than in almost any other cooking - and that it's not actually hard! A domestic goddess has to maintain her cool when faced with pastry, it's true- but with Nigella's guidance even shortcrust pastry can be pain-free. How to be a Domestic Goddess is the book that understands our anxieties, feeds our fantasies and puts cakes, pies, pastries, preserves, puddings, bread and biscuits back into today's kitchen and our lives. Everything from cup cakes to chocolate cakes, from brownies to bagels, from gooseberry-cream crumble to double apple pie, from pizza to pistachio macaroons, scones and muffins to cheesecakes and steamed syrup sponge, from baklava to a Barbie cake, as well as children's cooking, Christmas baking and other wonderful family festive treats.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #344 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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

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

From the Publisher
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.

Customer Reviews

I challenge you not to drool over this book....
...I've always liked the way Nigella Lawson writes....her books make you want to read them, not just abandon to a dusty life on the kitchen shelf...She has a lovely way of making the recipes seem effortless, and most of them are as simple as they sound...I love the variety of recipes in this book, the little anecdotes that go with them, and the constant encouragement to experiment at home...the reader is made to feel that the recipes are not 'cast in iron', that it is possible to tweak and change them at our will...

The other thing I like about this book, is that Nigella is not selfish about her sources for recipes...if she finds a good recipe somewhere else, she gives the name of the book...like Nigella, I do a lot of 'middle of the night' browsing on the internet, especially in Amazon...and most of the books she mentions, or includes in the bibliography, I've been able to track down to purchase for myself...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and my teenage son is testimony to the success of the recipes that I've tried. My favourites? the Chocolate brownie recipe, the Christmas-Morning Muffins, which take 25 mins from start to finish, (I've even been known to make these on a school-day morning, and I'M a teacher!)The easy danish pastry recipes, the calvados syllabub....I'd list more, but I really think you need to get your own copy!!

Recipes that will make your mouth water.
Nigella Lawson makes cooking a pleasure. This book has a healthy balance between cooking for the family and cooking for guests that you want to impress. There was not a single recipe that I didn't want to try and by the time I had read the book I felt I knew Nigella and her family as old friends. Nigella encourages you to alter her recipes and feel confident doing so. I have never before bought a cookbook by a famous chef because I felt the recipes were too fancy or the ingredients were too difficult to buy, the majority of the ingredients in Nigella's recipe's can be found in most kitchen's or in the local shop. I cannot praise this book highly enough.

A Stunner!
No, I am not refering to Ms Lawson. I recently bought this book and have already tried over 10 recipes - each one a complete success and by that I mean absolutely no left-overs.

If you are looking for something to impress without having to spend many slavish hours in the kitchen, this book will give you enough ideas to keep you busy for many weeks to come.

The recipes are easy and I mean dead-simple! No fuss, no fiddling about with kitchen gadgets, no watching over the stove - nothing. Each recipe is stripped down to the basics and presented in a simple, idiot-friendly manner and yet the results are worthy of a nod from a gourmet chef!

I love the Sweet and Salty Peanut Biscuits, so different from the peanutbutter type biscuits we know. The Brownies are spectacular given that they are so easy to make, but wait...the Molten Chocolate Babycakes will leave you quite lost for words!

There is also a chapter on breads all all things yeasty. Here Ms Lawson pleads us to use old potato water as the liquid. Huh?! Well, yes, that's what she says! Who am I to dispute a guru. So, improbable as it sounds, I tried it. And .... well, frankly I don't quite see the big difference. I have turned to making my own bread for a few months now but it always finishes in two days. I have yet to test the theory that bread lasts longer with old potato water.

I also love the chapter on pies. Loads of easy stuff here to make and bake and I must confess that I am guilty of using family picnics as an excuse to make the Pizza Rustica and Cornish Pasties.

And finally, do not over look the chapter on puddings. For something unusual, try the Red Gooseberry Clafoutis and Om Ali. They are different and guaranteed to get you some 'ooohs' and 'aaahs'.

In general, I have enjoyed the reading the recipes in this book as much and making them - but not as much as eating them!!!