Kitchen Diaries: Double Ginger Cake

It's spring, and there are good seasonal ingredients again! After last night's warm salad of Jersey Royals, asparagus and bacon with the world's faffiest artichokes, we were in need of a little extra somethin'. No chocolate or cream in the house to lift those pears in the fruit bowl out of obscurity, so we embarked on making a cake.

(Ok. So all my posts are about cake. Even the salmon was in cake form. I might have certain... proclivities. )

Yes, a cake. Listening to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, I hauled the multitude of ingredients out of the store cupboard to make this near-perfect ginger cake. It's one of my favourites in the book - especially because I've never, never had all the ingredients it calls for in the right quantity, and substitutions never seem to ruin it.

In the past I've had to use plain caster sugar instead of dark muscovado, marmalade for the syrup, and possibly some dried apricots for the sultanas. It always tastes just as good. This time, a little treacle is required.

I think its advantage is that you don't need to cream the butter and sugar at the start. By melting the wet ingredients together, the whole thing seems a lot more incorporated and smooth - this must maximise air bubbles that give it such a beautiful lightness.

The top of the cake crisps to add seductive bite. I can only suggest you try a sizeable square, warm from the oven, with a dollop of freshly whipped cream on the top for a completely erotic experience.

But like the best lovers, this cake is still good the next day. Ok, the crispy edge has gone and its perfume isn't as strong, but it's mighty fine with a cup of tea in a sunbeam.

Please, make a date with this pudding. And get a whole bunch more by buying Nigel's Kitchen Diaries through our Amazon store. Now available in paperback for the weak-limbed!

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Kitchen Diaries: A Tale of Three Cakes

Lemon and Orange Cheesecake (April 22)
Really Fast Cake with Blueberries and Pears (May 15)
Strawberry Mascarpone Tart (June 24)


Three cakes? Well, it was my birthday party /baby shower at the weekend, and I'm one of those people who get as much or more pleasure from making my own cake as from eating it. So why stop at just one?

I've been a little suspicious of Nigel's baking recipes in the past - totally unwarranted, but I've had some rotten luck every time I try them out. Oven too hot, broken mixer, etc. But he's proven his cake chops with these rich, springtime puds.


I made the cheesecake and blueberry/pear cake the day before the party just in case my streak continued. Fortunate also because what time I saved in making the 'really fast' cake is totally taken up with the cheesecake. While combining the ingredients and making the crumb base is extremely simple, cooking the thing gets a trifle more complicated.

American cheesecake (my preferred style) is baked long and slow, to a consistency which could doubtless be used to smother a man. Last week, at the one good restaurant in Wood Green, we were served something in the European quivvery, moussey style that was tasty but unsatisfying. I worried, what with the gentle cooking in a bain marie, whether Nigel's would fall into the latter camp. Though it doesn't quite splinter and flake as a real NY brick, the mascarpone/egg/cream/cream cheese blend provides the desired suffocating density. It ends up being the favourite from those greedy enough to try all three.

While the oven cooled with the cheesecake inside (for a good hour or so), I set to work chopping pears and blitzing batter for the 'emergency' cake. The 'classic "equal butter to sugar to flour" base' recipe Nigel quotes isn't known to me, but I'm willing to try it out in the next few months. It makes a much stiffer dough than the sponge batter I would expect. I also increase the ingredients slightly to stretch it for more people. I don't know what the egg part of the ratio is, so I stick to two - might account for its texture.

The batter is pretty thin in the tin so I don't skimp on the fruit - squishing it into the batter in the hopes it raises up during the baking. It doesn't disappoint, but I expect it would taste nicer warm with a dollop of Greek yoghurt for breakfast.

Saturday morning is time to make the strawberry tart. I can't get behind the base as suggested. I use all butter shortbread rather than the super posh biscuits - I assume he means the Duchy ones? - to save pennies. And it is impossible to shape in the tart dish without really squishing it together, so no crumbly pebbly texture. This does help in serving it later, except for the first piece which came out looking more like an Eton mess (sorry, Dave).

The only problem with the recipe is that he underestimates wildly the amount of strawberries. I sliced closer to 500g onto the top than the 250g suggested. I doubt he was really paying attention at the time, just adding until it was covered. Oh, and could a tart look that good in a rectangular tin? I can't imagine it, and anyway I don't have one. Round is pretty enough.

Secretly, everyone's pleased that a few people haven't shown up. One person actually said, 'I had four helpings, and I'm not even a pudding person.' Well, if that's not praise enough for Nigel's cakes, I don't know what is.

Buy the book, be a domestic god(dess). Preferably through our Amazon shop.

Kitchen Diaries: Bramley Apple Shortcake

My first day of maternity leave and to commemorate my new role as 'housewife' (can it be true?) I mean to make a pie for the man of the house. I also need to try out my new uberblender on some pastry.

The last hand blender went smoking into the afterlife on another Nigel recipe: the lemon demerara cake which couldn't get a fair write-up what with the butter-sugar creaming ending abruptly. I'm not a natural at making pastry by hand, but this monster has an engine the size of a powerboat so I should be able to get it all combined before the butter goes greasy.

This pastry is unusual for it's cakey-style ingredients - heaps of sugar, an egg and baking powder. It doesn't fall into my experience of 'shortcake' which in America consists of a sweetened scone dough, soft inside and crunchy on top, cut in half like a sponge, filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. (Oops, drooling...) But the cookie taste and texture with the hot apples is gorgeous.

I don't ordinarily bother pre-cooking apples for a pie with a top crust - normally they steam inside, and the juice bubbles up through pretty slits on the top. But to ensure the crust stays light and crispy, it pays to take the extra time. And the smell of apples cooking in butter may be the smell of heaven.

I wish I'd erred on the side of generosity with the apples to balance it a bit more. Go for five Bramleys, even if it seems a lot for such a little pie tin. I'm surprised Nigel doesn't insist you serve this piping hot with ice cream, but I'll step in and recommend it.

On assembly, Nigel warns of the pastry's delicacy, and he's not wrong - keep your surfaces very well floured and work quickly. Roll it out fairly thickly... I ended up with a massive crust on the outer edge, while I could have had a more substantial middle. And don't roll your eyes when he says to brush the crust 'tenderly' with milk - once you've laid the pastry on the warm apples, it starts to melt!

The end result is lovely, even with its massive biscuit crust. Just don't eat too big a dinner beforehand! You can buy Nigel's Kitchen Diaries cheap through our Amazon store.

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Kitchen Diaries: Lime Tart

We’ve got a few relationships which involve swapping desserts, and last night we went to one couple’s house for beef. Last time Sallie came 'round she made the most incredible blueberry cheesecake, so it was the perfect excuse to make Nigel's Lime Tart.

Nigel says it’s easy, but it’s rather a lot of work. I thought I’d be able to do it without a problem in the two hours between when we got back from a visit to Arundel Castle and when we were supposed to be at their house, but it took about two and a half hours to make and cook.

The pastry is very very delicate, like homemade sugar cookies without the baking soda, so it needs loads of resting time. It can’t be rolled, so it gets logged and sliced and pressed.

The lime innards are very eggy, reminding me of a Bakewell tart, and yes, they are easy to prepare, but it takes 45 minutes to bake. I bow my head in shame at my lack of reading ahead.

The crust Nigel says to prepare is extremely buttery, and takes at least 10 minutes longer to pre-bake (and become “dry to the touch”) than he recommends. By that point, the edges were browner than a discerning pie crust maker would like, and there was still another chunk of time in the oven with the insides. I had to rush through this part, which means that the tops were overly cooked and the crust’s insides were still too soggy to stand up on their own.

At least two cookbooks have assured me that pie crusts do not burn after being pre-baked. They both lie.

As for the tasting, the tart came after a particularly lovely pot roast and was a huge success. There were general calls for seconds all around. We practically licked the tin clean. It was a perfect mixture of custardy and sour. Very moist and not too gooey. Next time, and there will be a next time, I’ll plan ahead and clear my schedule for the afternoon.

Buy the book cheap through our Amazon store and you can make your own Lime Tart.

Kitchen Diaries: Treacle Tart

My book arrived two days ago and I immediately noticed how heavy the thing is. Seriously heavy.

The baptismal recipe was created for last night’s Girls’ Night pot-luck and clothes swap at Ruth’s house. Bonus: except for the white bread, I already had everything I needed for it in the house.

I had no idea that there was 200g of white bread in treacle tart. I thought the treacle was made of, well I don’t know what I thought the treacle was made of, but not bread. I don’t eat much bread so was bothered by the fact that the only bread the local shop had on offer was an 800g loaf. After the tart’s share, that’d leave me with a whole 600g of waste. Rubbish. So I bought 400g of the Polski Sklep's finest. Only problem – it wasn’t so fresh.

The pastry was easy. I used some of the stuff I’d already made from The Joy of Cooking ‘cause the recipe was the same. Processing the bread into crumbs was easy. Adding the lemon (a rather antiquated lemon-like specimen I found in the door of the fridge) was easy. Getting 8 tablespoons of golden syrup out of the tin was not so easy. Verrry messy.

The bread/lemon/syrup mixing went much more smoothly than I imagined it would, but the resulting goo was rather shallow in the pie tin. There was about a half an inch between the beginning of the crust and the top of the treacle.

When I pulled the tart out at the agreed time, it looked damp and squalid, and too "formed". pulled a few bits off to taste and they just tasted like a bit of hot sweet bread. Not like treacle tart, in other words.

I added another two tablespoons of golden syrup to the top of the tart, shoved it back in the oven for 10 minutes, and then it looked more like something you’d want to eat. However, the "treacle" was still a lump of self-contained product inside the crust, and it was toasted on top. Just like in the book. Reared on Mr. Kipling, I had expected it to be much more gooey.

I took it ‘round to Ruth’s with a tub of vanilla, but because no one had organised who was bringing savoury or sweet we had five desserts to eat after a dinner of garlic bread and crisps. My treacle tart unfortunately didn’t make the cut.

So re-warmed today and eaten with a cup of rooibos tea, the tart is OK. I honestly don’t think it would have made a difference if we’d eaten it last night or not. M thinks it's good, but I’m convinced it’s not great. It definitely needs ice cream or something else cold and creamy to go alongside. Worst feature: you can taste the bread. Best feature: the golden syrup sticks to my teeth.

Things I’d change next time:

Lemon rind to replace 1/4 tsp of the juice
More golden syrup
Really really fresh plain white bread. It shouldn’t be too salty ‘cause that comes out in the finished product.
Maybe some cinnamon or nutmeg to add depth
Thicker crust

Buy the book cheap through our Amazon store and you can make your own treacle tart.