Nigella Bites Read Free Page B

room temperature, then knock it back and press it out over the tin, following on from there.
    Serves 8.
    for the cake base:
    350–400g strong white flour
    ½ teaspoon salt
    50g caster sugar
    ½ packet easy-blend yeast (about 3g)
    2 eggs
    ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
    grated zest of half a lemon
    ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
    125ml lukewarm milk
    50g butter, softened
    30 x 20cm Swiss-roll tin
    for the topping:
    1 egg beaten with a tablespoon of cream and a pinch of ground cinnamon
    1 small or ½ medium Bramley apple (approx. 175g in weight)
    375g blackberries
    zest of ½ lemon
    50g self-raising flour
    25g ground almonds
    ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
    50g cold unsalted butter, diced
    2 tablespoons caster sugar
    2 tablespoons demerara sugar
    25g flaked almonds
    Put 350g of the flour in a bowl with the salt, sugar and easy-blend yeast. In another bowl, beat the eggs and add them, with the vanilla extract, lemon zest and cinnamon, to the lukewarm milk. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients to make a medium-soft dough, being prepared to add more flour as necessary. I generally use about 400g in all, but advise you to start off with the smaller amount: just add more as needed. Work in the soft butter and knead by hand for about 10 minutes or half that time by machine. When the dough is ready it will appear smoother and springier. It suddenly seems to plump up into glossy life.
    Cover with a tea towel and leave till doubled in size (an hour to an hour and a quarter). Or leave to rise slowly in a cold place overnight. Then punch down and press to line a Swiss-roll tin measuring 30 x 20cm. You may think it’s never going to stretch to fill, but it will, although you may need to let it rest for 10 minutes or so mid-stretch, especially if the dough has had a cold rise. When it’s pressed out on the tin, leave it to prove for 15–20 minutes then brush with the egg and cream mixture.
    Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Peel and chop the apple and toss it in a bowl with the blackberries and the zest from the other half lemon. Set aside in the bowl for the few minutes it takes to make the crumble topping. Put the flour, ground almonds and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl, stir to combine, then add the cold, diced butter. Using the tips of your fingers – index and middle stroking the fleshy pads of your thumbs – rub it into the flour. Stop when you have a mixture that resembles clumpy (this is a very buttery mixture) porridge oats. Fork in the sugars and flaked almonds.
    Tumble the fruit over the egg-washed dough and then sprinkle the crumble on top of that. Put in the oven for 15 minutes, then turn down to 180°C/gas mark 4 and cook for a further 20 minutes or so, until the dough is swelling and golden at its billowing edges and the crumble is set; don’t expect it to be crunchy.
    Remove from the oven and, if you can, wait five minutes or so before cutting it into greed-satisfying slabs.

CHAPTER TWO
COMFORT FOOD
    If I’m being honest, for me all food is comfort food, but there are times when you need a bowlful of something hot or a slice of something sweet just to make you feel that the world is a safer place. We all get tired, stressed, sad or lonely, and this is the food that soothes.
    Mashed Potato
    Salmon Fishcakes
    Double Potato and Halloumi Bake
    Chicken Soup and Kneidlach
    Kneidlach
    Lemon Risotto
    Stovetop Rice Pudding for Emergencies
    Chocolate Fudge Cake
    MASHED POTATO
    No, I haven’t gone mad, thinking you need a recipe for mashed potato, it’s just that I couldn’t even broach the subject of comfort food without starting off here. Plus, there are pointers, suggestions I want to make to ease the labour involved. The first is, buy a potato ricer. It’s a cheap, handheld contraption with a punctured base and a lid that you press down. You put the cooked potato in, squeeze, and out come white worms of fluffy mash – as you can see. The beauty is that you don’t need to peel the potato. The