How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

This is the other great work of the season. Pity other books that have just been published, as they will pale into insignificance. Who needs anything else when you have Nigel and Nigella to come home to every night? In an age of diet conscious eating, a book, How to be a Domestic Goddess, dedicated to the art of baking is unbridled indulgence. Cakes made with butter, full fat pastry and puddings brimming with cream - a hedonist's heaven. In this busy, topsy turvy world, we want to be pampered and occasionally go that little bit further by producing something sweet and deeply satisfying.

How to be a Domestic Goddess demystifies the art of baking and Nigella assures us that the cook will get as much pleasure from baking as those that consume the steaming results. From all things sweet, whether they be puddings, cakes, biscuits or bread to a smattering of savoury dishes, Nigella tells us how to achieve this nirvana, in her own inimitable way.

She has many followers who admire her courage, intellect and beauty and the fact that she's also an excellent cook. Images of Nigella tripping lightly round her kitchen in kitten heels, cashmered up, is something we would all like to emulate. Oh dear, it's not like that elsewhere, think sweaty brows and red faces. But this book is set to put things right and we too can metamorphose into butterflies of the cake variety. There will be a sudden rush to organise tea parties and overnight, we will become a nation of bakers.

Nigella does have the grace to admit that not everything goes according to plan in her kitchen. She owns up to mistakes: an over indulgence with food colouring in the lime curd filling of Flora's famous courgette cake or the easy almond cake, that gets stuck to the tin and rather than starting again, Nigella does a bit of remedial patchwork. We have all found ourselves in similar positions and it is heartening to know that the great cooks can suffer from these occurrences too. It was so refreshing to see in her recent television series on Channel 4 that her freezer is untidy.

Lovers of rhubarb will have a field day: it is one of Nigella's favourite things and she has even invented a rhubarb schnapps. The chapter on aDomestic Goddess' larder, gives us an insight into what we could find in Nigella's. Bottles of passion fruit curd, cranberry curd and paradise chutney are neatly lined up like soldiers waiting to do duty. However, it is the cakes and puddings that will send you into overdrive, imaginebutterscotch layer cake. Why not polish off an evening with espresso and cappuccino cupcakes, pistachio macaroons or the lightest chocolate mousse cake? The recipes are truly scrumptious, as well as the fabulous photographs.

Nigella is the hot potato of the cookie world and with her help, you too can find new found fame as a Domestic Goddess.

Publication Details:
374 pages. Photography by Petrina Tinslay. £25.
ISBN 0701168889. Published by Chatto & Windus.
2000

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