Raspberry and Vanilla Bundt Cake with Rose Syrup

After finally finishing watching Nigella Lawson’s new series, ‘Simply Nigella’, I was itching to make a bundt cake. Not just any bundt cake though, one that uses the really cool tin that Nigella uses for her trio of bundt cakes in her Christmas episode of ‘Simply Nigella’. I had seen this bundt tin around (sold exclusively at Williams Sonoma I think), and at $50 I initially thought maybe it was a little pricey to buy just because it looked cool. In the back of my mind however, I knew it was only a matter of time until I caved and purchased it. I just can’t help it when it comes to two things: Cake tins and cookbooks. I now have rather a few of both! 

Then, I saw Williams Sonoma had a sale on their baking ware. Well, that was it. I caved and bought one of the bundt tins, plus a couple of mini bundt tin pans. Funnily enough, I had this conversation with one of my friends who also likes to bake, and she had also just caved and bought the bundt tin as well! This all culminated around the time Nigella was in Australia on her book tour, and both of us had gone to hear her speak at the Dymocks Literary Lunch (back in January this year). 

I feel may we have been swept up in ‘Nigella fever’ so to speak, and thus Williams Sonoma did well out of both of us! I do doubt that either of us regret our inability to maintain our will power and not buy the cake tin, our cakes just look so pretty once they are baked in it!

For this particular bundt cake, I chose to adapt a recipe from Nigella’s book ‘Nigella Christmas’. The cake is flavoured only with vanilla and baked in a tin that, once dusted with icing sugar, looks like a cluster of snow capped mountains. I have added raspberries to my bundt, and made a rose syrup to drizzle over. I know you are probably thinking, ‘again with the rose?!’, but when you have been searching for edible flowers for as long as I have, once you find them, you buy them at every opportunity and adjust your baking plans accordingly! The cake would however, still be wonderful without the syrup if you didn’t feel like making it. 

Raspberry & Vanilla Bundt Cake with Rose Syrup

Ingredients for the Bundt Cake: 

225g unsalted butter, softened

300g caster sugar

6 eggs

350g plain flour 

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

250ml plain fat-free yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt)

3 tsp vanilla bean paste

200g raspberries (or loganberries), roughly chopped

icing sugar, for dusting

canola oil spray, for greasing

Ingredients for the Rose Syrup:

30g fresh rose petals 

210g caster sugar 

715ml water 

Method: 

Start by making the rose syrup. Ensure the rose petals have been gently rinsed and dried. Combine the water and caster sugar in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Bring to the boil then allow to simmer for a few minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool until it is just warm. 

Whilst the syrup is cooling, pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease a 2.5l capacity bundt tin with the canola oil spray, ensuring you get into the creases and corners. Place a large baking tray into the oven while it is preheating.

Once the syrup has cooled until it is just warm, add the rose petals. Try to submerge them as much as possible into the syrup. Leave to infuse. 

In a large bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until they become light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time along with a tablespoon of flour, mixing well between each addition. 

Once the eggs are well combined, add in the remaining flour, the bicarb soda, vanilla and yoghurt. Fold in all the ingredients until just combined. Add the raspberries and gently fold into the batter.

Evenly pour the batter into the prepared bundt tin, smoothing the top and gently tapping the tin onto a bench to ensure the batter has reached all the crevices of the tin. Place the bundt tin in the oven, sitting on top of the pre-heated baking tray. Bake for at least 45 minutes. Check the centre of the cake with a skewer to ensure the cake is baked through, leaving it in the oven for another 10-15 minutes if it is yet to cook through properly. Once the skewer comes out clean, the cake is ready. 

Remove the cake from the oven, and allow to sit on a wire rack for about 15 minutes. Then carefully invert the cake onto a cooling rack to remove from the tin.

Allow the cake to cool completely before serving. Dust with icing sugar, and serve each slice with a drizzle of the Rose Syrup (and maybe some cream or ice cream!). 

A note on the Rose Syrup: With the petals left in the rose syrup, it will only last a couple of days maximum. However, if you strain the syrup and remove the petals it will last at least a week in the fridge. To enhance the rose flavour once the petals have been removed, add a teaspoon of rosewater and mix.

References: ‘Nigella Christmas’ by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, 2008), p.198; or via Nigella’s website; Local is Lovely by Sophie Hansen. 

For more recipes showcasing the best of rose, check out my ebook Baking with Rose by clicking on the link below!

Nigella Lawson's Italian Roast Chicken

I’ve never been much of a roast chicken fan. Really, I’m not a fan of meat in general. Which is why over this cookbook challenge, when it comes to savoury options, there will be few red meat dishes (possibly none), and lots of chicken dishes. Now that I’ve said that, most of you will probably stop reading, because I’ve just told you I don’t eat almost a whole food group! 

Never fear, baking will remain the focus of this blog, so there will always be a satisfying sweet recipe around the corner. I am however, trying to add a few more savoury recipes to the blog whilst I am doing my cookbook challenge. Not only does it help out with deciding what to make for dinner on the weekend, but some cookbooks in our collection don’t have sweet or baking sections and some just don’t appeal to me. So with using ALL the cookbooks in mind, sometimes a savoury dish here and there will have to be tolerated. 

Having said that, if anyone could brighten up dinner and change my mind about roast chicken it’s Nigella. I know I’ve said this before (probably more than once), but I really love Nigella, her recipes and her love of food. I know in the past I have heard Nigella talking about how roast chicken is such a comforting dish, and up until I tried this recipe, I found it hard to agree. But now, I definitely do! 

This dish is one of those that you just know is going to be good. And once you’ve made it a couple of times, it suddenly becomes a family favourite, requested over and over again. My Mum made this recipe originally, in an attempt to actually have all members of the family eat the same thing for dinner I suspect. I was suspicious at first, but I was soon eating my words, and the chicken with gusto. 

For a while when this dish was first made, we couldn’t find the dried olives specified in the recipe. It was still a great dish, and if you haven’t tried it with the olives you won’t know what you’re missing out on. But, if you can find them, use them! They absolutely make this dish! We eventually found them at a local deli, so they are out there, and not too hard to find. 

As this recipe has been made a few times at home, we have inevitably altered it slightly. We use two small chickens, and divide the stuffing between each. One chicken of the same total weight will also be perfect. Orange capsicums can sometimes be hard to find, so substitute another yellow one to make up the difference. We often serve this chicken with garlic roast potatoes, which should be prepared and put in the oven about 30 minutes or so after the chicken goes in, so they are ready together. 

Ingredients: 

x 2 small chickens (approx. 1.5-2kg total weight), or one larger 1.5-2kg (approx.) chicken 

1 lemon, halved

4 sprigs of rosemary

3 leeks, washed and trimmed 

2 red capsicums 

1 orange capsicum 

1 yellow capsicum 

100-200g dried black olives*, (pitted if possible)

60 ml olive oil 

sea salt and pepper 

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 

Cut each leek into three (length ways), and add to a large baking/roasting pan. De-seed the capsicums, and cut into thick strips, and add to the pan.

Sit the chickens on top of the vegetables in the pan, and place half a lemon in each chicken cavity, and two sprigs of rosemary. If using one whole chicken, place both halves of the lemon, and all the rosemary in the cavity of the chicken. 

Drizzle the chickens and vegetables with the olive oil (ensuring the vegetables are fairly evenly coated), and scatter in the dried olives amongst the vegetables. Sprinkle the tops of the chickens with a little salt and pepper. 

Place in the oven for 1 - 1 1/4 hours, until the chicken is cooked through and the juices of the chicken run clear when the flesh is cut at the thickest part of the thigh joint. 

Transfer the chickens to a carving board or plates, cover with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Place the vegetables back in the oven (reducing the oven temperature if they are well cooked), to keep warm. 

Remove the vegetables from the oven, and cut the chicken up into pieces. Toss the chicken with the vegetables in the pan and serve. 

*Nigella’s original recipe specifies 100g of olives. We often buy up to 200g as a few of us are obsessed with them! If you aren’t so keen on black olives, keep it to 100g.

Original Recipe from ‘Nigellissima’ by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, 2012), p.96 or via Nigella's website.

All cooking, styling and photography for this post by Kathryn Vincent of Kulinary Adventures of Kath. 

Vegetable Risotto with Quinoa (Gluten Free)

Those who know me well, know that I love a good risotto. It is the only dinner related dish that I make consistently, and will order risotto about eight times out of ten when out for dinner. It’s not that I don’t like other things, its just that I really like risotto! I first started making it when I was about 16 or 17, and since then have come up with numerous recipes. Most of the time the ‘recipes’ I come up with are really just my attempt to use ingredients we already have at home. Most of the recipes I make, end up having some proportion of prosciutto, parmesan cheese (or similar) and lots of herbs. 

I first made this recipe after having a chicken dish from Nigella Lawson’s book ‘Nigellissima’. This Nigella dish had roasted capsicums and leeks cooked in the same pan as a chicken. To me the vegetables are the best part of the dish, and I thought they would make a good addition to risotto. 

I only recently started adding quinoa to my risotto recipes. I thought it was a good idea to make the dish healthier and more filling. To be perfectly honest I’m not a big fan of quinoa, and I have found that adding it to risotto is the only way I can eat it! While the combination  of quinoa and capsicums is really nice in this dish,  if you can’t stand the idea of eating quinoa (and I totally understand that!), just substitute the quinoa for more arborio rice. 

Ingredients for Roast Capsicums: 

2 tbsp olive oil 

2 red capsicums (larger sized)

2 orange or yellow capsicums (larger sized) 

3-4 garlic cloves, crushed 

Ingredients for the Risotto: 

1 tbsp garlic oil 

2 leeks, washed and chopped (white part only)

1 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup mixed grain quinoa, rinsed

1 cup dry white wine

1 litre (4 cups) chicken stock

8 slices prosciutto (approx.), roughly torn

1/2 cup parmesan cheese (or similar), finely grated

1 bunch basil, washed and roughly chopped (leaves only)

Method: 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Cut up capsicums in to thick strips, discarding the seeds. In a large ovenproof dish, place one tablespoon of oil, then add the capsicums. Crush the garlic over the capsicums and drizzle over the remaining olive oil. Toss the capsicums and garlic, so everything is fairly evenly coated with oil. Place in the oven to roast for at least an hour. Keep an eye on the capsicums during this time and move them around in the tray so they cook evenly.

After the capsicums have been roasting for 20 minutes, start the risotto. Heat a large heavy based pan on the stove, on medium heat. Add the garlic oil and leeks, and cook the leeks down until they are soft. Once the leeks have softened, add the arborio rice and quinoa, and stir to coat the grains. Add the white wine and turn the heat down so the wine gently simmers, but does not boil. Allow the wine to be absorbed. Once the wine has been mostly absorbed by the grains, add the chicken stock. Stir briefly to ensure that none of the grains are stuck to the bottom of the pan, then place the lid of the pan on loosely. The risotto should not boil, only gently simmer at the very most. Keep an eye on the risotto and if it starts to boil or simmer too much, turn the heat down. Stir occasionally, and the grains should absorb most of the liquid in about 40 minutes. 

Once the capsicums are cooked, leave them in the oven on a low heat to stay warm until ready to add to the risotto. 

Once most of the liquid in the risotto has been absorbed (after 30-40 minutes), add the capsicums, basil, cheese and prosciutto and stir to combine. Turn the heat off and allow the risotto to sit for a minute before serving.

Serve with extra prosciutto, parmesan or basil as desired.

Makes 6-8 portions. 

Originally Posted May 28, 2014.

Nigella Lawson's Brownies

As promised, order is restored after the first savoury post, with another lovely baking recipe! And you can't get much more sweet and decadent than a chocolate brownie! Definitely makes up for eating vegetables. Even if they were pureed in soup with bacon! Its a tough life, haha. 

Considering I don’t really eat chocolate, I have made a surprising amount of chocolate things this year. I guess when your baking for other people, chocolate is hard to go past. 

After making the brownies by Bill Granger back in March, I was interested to see what another recipe would turn out like. I of course, could not go past a Nigella Lawson recipe. 

When I first made these I think I cooked them a little longer than Nigella stipulated. The brownies were more cake-y, than fudgy, however it was commented that they tasted exactly like Sara Lee chocolate cake, which was considered a good thing!

Ingredients: 

150g unsalted butter 

300g light muscovado sugar

75g cocoa powder

150g plain flour

1 tsp bicarb soda

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g milk chocolate, roughly chopped into chunks 

Method: 

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Line a baking tin/tray measuring approx. 25cm/5cm.  

Melt butter over a low heat in a medium saucepan. Once melted, add sugar and stir to combine. 

Sift the cocoa powder, flour and bicarb and stir into the pan. Once it is mixed in, remove from heat. The mixture will be quite dry at this point. 

In a jug, whisk the eggs with the vanilla extract and then add to the brownie mixture. 

Stir in the chopped chocolate and immediately pour mixture into prepared pan. Cook for 20-25 minutes. The idea is to have the brownies still a bit wobbly when they come out of the oven, and a skewer inserted into the centre of the brownies would not come out clean. 

Place the tin on a cooling rack, and allow to cool a little before cutting the brownies. 

Original Recipe from ‘Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home’ by Nigella Lawson, p.217 (2010). 

Originally Posted May 19, 2014.

Chewy Cardamom & Rosewater Macaroons (Gluten + Dairy Free + Passover Friendly)

This recipe is originally from Nigella Lawson’s book ‘Feast’ (p.186), however I have adapted it slightly to suit my tastes. I have made these many, many times, given them as gifts, and Cath (Confessions of a Glutton) and I sold some at our Bake Sale back in September last year. They are really easy to make and are great if you have egg whites left over from something else. The recipe is also really easy to double, and they just happen to be gluten free. 

Need any more reasons to make them or have I convinced you yet?! 

Don’t be put off by the flavours of cardamom and rosewater. They are quite subtle and very lovely. And in my opinion, anything that comes from a Nigella Lawson cookbook must be worth trying. Nigella has a great attitude and creativity towards food that is infectious and very admirable. 

Ingredients:

200g almond meal

200g caster sugar 

1/4 tsp finely ground cardamom

1/4 tsp rosewater

2 egg whites 

1-2 tsp rosewater, extra

25g blanched almonds (enough for each macaroon you make) 

Method: 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line two large baking trays with baking paper. 

In a free standing mixer, mix the almond meal, sugar, cardamom and egg whites until it forms a coherent paste. This process can also be done by hand, but as Nigella suggests, and I agree, the mixer is best due to the thickness, and stickiness of the mixture. At this point you may add 1/4 tsp of rosewater to the mix. This is my addition because I love rosewater. 

Sprinkle rosewater onto your hands and roll the mixture into little balls (walnut sized). Place on to the baking trays and the squash down a little. Then place a blanched almond in the centre of each biscuit.  

Bake for 10-12 minutes. If they go golden too quickly turn the oven down to 180 degrees celsius. The aim is not to have golden biscuits, but to remove them from the oven before this happens. Inevitably, I find the edges of some biscuits will go a little golden, probably because each rack in the oven I use cooks at a different rate. 

Cool biscuits on a cooling rack.

Makes approx. 28

Originally Posted February 1, 2014.