How to Eat by Nigella Lawson Read Free Book Online Page A

gives the cake an almost feathery lightness. The butter must be very, very soft or it won’t all blend together. I always use organic eggs.
    1½ cups all-purpose flour
    ¼ cup cornstarch
    1 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
    16 tablespoons (2 sticks) very soft unsalted butter
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    1½ teaspoons vanilla extract or zest of ½ lemon or orange
    4 eggs
    2 tablespoons milk
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter two 8-inch round cake pans.
    Put all the ingredients, except the milk, into the processor and process to mix. Check that everything has mixed all right, and then process some more while pouring the milk through the funnel. You want a batter of a soft, dropping consistency. Add more milk if necessary. Pour into the buttered pans and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes. When ready, the tops should spring back when pressed and a cake tester or fine skewer should come out clean.
    Let the cakes stand in their pans for a minute or so and then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Sandwich together with cream, jam, raspberries, or whatever you like.
    Obviously, you can make the cake the oldfangled way. Cream the butter and sugar till pale and soft, then add the eggs, alternating each egg with 1 tablespoon or so of the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder, sifted together. When the eggs are beaten in, add the milk and vanilla, then fold in the rest of the flour mixture.
    You can also make the sponge in a single 8-inch layer. Halve all the ingredients except the vanilla—use 1 teaspoon—and keep the full amount of zest, if you’re adding it. You’ll have to make this the traditional way; there’s too little batter for a processor to do the job properly.
    BIRTHDAY CAKE
    It’s wise to have in your repertoire a pretty fail-safe chocolate cake. I call this birthday cake because that’s what it seems to get made for mostly. It’s plain but good, and the chocolate ganache with which it’s draped is gleamingly spectacular and ideal for bearing birthday candles. With this recipe, you don’t need to be dextrous or artistic—and any other form of icing for a birthday cake requires you to be both. But if you want to make the sort of cake you actually write Happy Birthday on, make a Victoria sponge and look at the children’s party food on page 450 for additional ideas.
    So many chocolate cakes now are luscious, rich, and resolutely uncakey—rather like my chocolate pudding cake with raspberries on page 316—that I feel nostalgically drawn to this solid offering. And—this is the best bit—it is ridiculously easy to make. No creaming or beating or whisking. Stirring is about the extent of it. I know condensed milk looks like a spooky ingredient, but trust me.
    A note on the chocolate: I like to make the cake with bittersweet chocolate (average 60 percent cocoa solids in best-quality brands) but the ganache with a mixture of bittersweet and milk chocolate. The light chocolate I use is Valrhona Lacte (which I think has about 35 percent cocoa solids), but most supermarkets sell a good-quality continental chocolate, which is comparable. As to what proportions to use, that really is up to you. I change them depending on who’s eating the cake, but it’s likely to be half dark, half milk, or sometimes two-thirds dark to one-third milk.
    FOR THE CAKE
    1¾ cups all-purpose flour
    1/3 cup best-quality unsweetened cocoa powder
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    pinch salt
    1 cup superfine sugar
    8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
    2/3 cup evaporated milk
    3½ ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
    2 eggs, beaten
    FOR THE CHOCOLATE GANACHE
    8 ounces best-quality bittersweet and milk chocolates (see above)
    1 cup heavy cream
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Put the kettle on. Butter an 8-inch springform cake pan (or two 8-inch round cake pans) and line the base with baking parchment. This last is not crucial if you’re using nonstick pans, but even so, it removes all worries about turning out