Wednesday 26 September 2012

Just call me Nigella

I am Nigella, yes, honestly I am.

As you know I have taken a leaf out of Penny Wise's book and am making my own Christmas cake this year, as frugal as possible out of as many 'value' ingredients as is possible. Last week I soaked a kilo of mixed dried fruit in brandy and yesterday I went onto stage 2: the cooking.
I used a mixture of various different recipes and my own spin, but basically it is the recipe for Christmas cake from Nigella's Christmas. I mainly chose this one, because she has 3 different lots of ingredients quantities for you to choose from, depending on the size of cake (and cake tin) you want.



I had a 23cm cake tin, so chose the medium size.
Also I can, of course, drift around the kitchen looking fabulous, just like Nigella, never making any mess, not a splatter of cake mixture anywhere, whilst drinking a watermelon liquor and Cointreau martini  and smiling sexily into a mirror - obviously! Oops, there are mites in my plain flour. I bet Nigella never found mites in her plain flour. Don't worry, no one will notice.

I won't write the recipe down, unless anyone is interested in making the same one, because there are hundreds out there to choose from.

So finding out that the oven had to be on for nearly 3 hours, I decided to make use of all that time by filling it with as many different things as I could get in over that time period.

So first of all, a banana loaf, I lost my first recipe so had to find another one, not sure it was quite cooked enough, needing a slightly higher heat than the Christmas cake, but I still enjoyed it. I am sure Nigella never had that problem (she probably has 2 ovens - at least).

My presentation is not quite Nigella either.

The next thing I got started on was my stew, or to be more accurate 1st Man's Stew. I recommend this highly as it was SO delicious, I was in heaven, eating stew and home made bread, while watching Midsommer Murders (does Nigella have time to watch TV? All that drifting around looking sexy is very time-consuming).
I didn't quite stick to the original recipe, meat-wise, because I made use of what I had in the freezer so mine was made with nice, cheap pork belly and some chunks of chorizo. Also when I went to ASDA, they didn't sell dried cannellini beans (odd, I know) so I used tinned, which was maybe quite a good idea actually as I was doing mine in the oven in a couple of hours rather than in a slow cooker. Incidentally in ASDA, small cans of cannellini beans are 64p unless you go searching in the Indian food section, where the exact same thing, but in a large can are 37p. Get your head around that one?

 I got it started off in a cooking pot and then transferred it to the oven for a couple of hours. Just enough time for another 3 watermelon liquor and Cointreau martini's.
Wow, it really was delicious and there should easily have been enough for 4 portions. Sadly, I am very greedy and I ate two portions in one go. Ah well, it will make me more curvaceous and sexy, I am sure.



The final thing to go in the oven was a small gammon joint, I love these, you can have them cold for days and as they are only £4 they are much cheaper than buying sliced ham (I cut it in nice thick slices too).



So finally, the kitchen is full of the most wonderful aroma of spices as the time draws near for the cake to come out. At this point I should have been half drunk from all those martinis if I had really been drinking them and in an immaculate kitchen. Never mind, I had a delicious glass of water instead. The sweat is pouring off me and the kitchen is a horrendous pile of used bowls, utensils, tins and trays with globules of cake batter spattering everything. Don't worry, the TV crew can wash all of that up later.

The moment of truth:



Great success. You see, I told you I was Nigella!

26 comments:

  1. Well done you ... it all looks fabulous!

    Vicky x

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    1. thanks, hope it tastes as good as it looks.

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  2. Extremely busy time and I wish I had a television crew to clean up after making my cake(s). You deserve the martini's after all your hard work. Oh and the cake looks just as good (if not better) than any Nigella could have produced. I wonder, do you store yours or freeze it like I do. Mine is made from Gluten Free flour so I am not sure if it will store. Enjoy x x

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    1. So do I!I am going to store it rather than freeze it.

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    2. Sheila Tully; your gluten free Christmas cake will store just fine and "age" better if stored in an air tight tin rather than frozen. We have GF Christmas cake every year and I am still here to tell the tale of our sherry soaked attempts.

      Frugal Living UK; All of that looks so yummy especially the Christmas cake. Am nearly inspired to do mine, but not quite lol

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    3. Thanks Lean Thinker, I was not sure as this is my first GF Cake. I may make another one and we can get this out and have it. Again, many thanks.

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  3. Looks great! Do you 'feed' it by pouring brandy / alcohol of your choice over? (Although I'd perhaps not reccommend the watermelon liquor here.) Popped over from 'Going Gently' btw - liking your blog a lot so far. :-)

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    1. i can't pretend I am an expert, but I am going to try the feeding it technique. A tablespoon of alcohol once a week for the first month I believe, and then brushing alcohol over it once a month after that. lets see how it works.

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    2. I don't think there's any expertise needed. As much and as often as you le seemed to be the way it was done in our household when I was a kiddie. :-D Oh, and I thought of a tip for your flour - add a bayleaf to the bag, apparently this keeps them at bay. No pun intended!
      This and Penny Wises's is inspiring me to try making a chrimble cake myself for the first ever time.

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    3. Do it! It really gets me in the spirit of the season. I make several to take into work. My operators really like home baked cake more than the shop bought stuff others bring in. I think the same is said of family too. Its an effort that is really worth it. And fun to boot.

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  4. What a chuckle I got reading this post. You're a good writer as well as a good chef, Dan. I hope Nigella peeks in and see how it's REALLY done. :-D

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  5. Awesome looking cake! Well done. How much did it come to in the end? P x

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    1. Well it is a tough one to answer but I will try:
      Pack of butter, £1, sugar, about 40p, eggs were free from a friend, fruit, £1.28, cherries, 50p, Almonds, £1.60, flour, about 10p approx, treacle, well, 2 tps from a tin I had, so let's say 10p, spices, used what I had and anyway, I would say about 2p. Don't think that I have missed anything, so about £5 plus some brandy. Not bad going. I think yours came to about the same I seem to remember :-)

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  6. Loved this post. Chortling away. And mmm cake!

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  7. All your baking and cooking made my mouth water. I can smell that cake from here!!!

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    1. I am so impatient to try it now but it will be so worth the wait!

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  8. Oh Nigella, this was so much fun to read! I think I need to go back and read it again! I love how you got so much output from your oven, everything looks wonderful. Say, can I have one of those watermelon thingies???

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    1. I hate putting the oven on for just one thing, especially if it needs to be on for such a long time. I think after just one of those watermelon thingies we would be passing out.

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  9. How about Nigel instead of Nigella? LOL! Side note, LOVE NIgella, she's awesome. I'm humbled that someone across the miles cooked something I inspired them to do. Hey, recipes are all about making them your own, it looks delicious!! And the cake, YUM!

    Nicely done, Nigella would be proud!! ;-)

    Thank you again for trying the recipe. You're awesome!!

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    1. And thank you for publishing the recipe, it is delicious. I'm having some leftovers tonight!

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  10. After reading about all that lovely food I can almost smell your kitchen now, with the cake, ham and stew. I find it quite satisfying when I've done a load of cooking and used most of my utensils and bowls, to bring order out of chaos when I clean everything up; I used to get dismayed by the mess then I realised I just had to look at it from a different angle!

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  11. I love the smell of christmas cake cooking. I must think about making mine too.

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