I'm not big on Easter. My family never did egg hunts (I don't even know if they are called egg hunts?) or made coloured eggs or anything like that. I am a fan of hot cross buns, though, if I manage to forget about my time working at a bakery during Easter standing outside the shop yelling "hot cross buns, get your hot cross buns". Having a chocolate hot cross bun, fresh out of the oven, pressed into my hands by a baker for my morning tea was something special though.

This year I decided to try making my own, and who else would I turn to but Nigella?

Nigella Lawson's Hot Cross Buns

from Feast

You will need:

• 150ml milk
• 50g butter
• zest from one orange
• 2 whole cloves
• 400g plain flour
• 1 8g packet instant dry yeast
• 125g mixed dried fruit (including dried cranberries, dried blueberries, and sultanas)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1/2 tbsp white sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1 tbsp boiling water

Directions:

1. heat the milk, butter, zest and cloves in a small saucepan just until the butter melts then turn heat off.
2. measure the 400g flour, yeast, dried fruit and spices into a bowl.
3. by now the butter-milk mixture will have cooled, beat one egg into the saucepan. Remove cloves.
4. pour liquid into bowl of dry ingredients. Mix together with a wooden spoon.
5. knead the dough with your hands until elastic.
6. form into ball and place in a buttered bowl. Cover bowl with gladwrap and refrigerate overnight.
7. the next day, take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
8. punch the dough down, and knead again until smooth and elastic.
9. half the dough so that you have two pieces, then half those pieces so you have four pieces and so on until you get 16 clumps of dough of roughly even size.
10. form the clumps of dough into smooth round balls and place on an oven try lined with baking paper, close to each other but not touching.
11. scour the tops with the back of a kitchen knife to make a cross.
12. cover with a teatowel and leave for 45 minutes.
13. in the meantime, heat the oven to 220 degrees celsius.
14. beat one egg with a small amount of milk and then brush over top of the buns.
15. mix together 3 tbsp plain flour, 1/2 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp water to form a thick paste. Use this to make crosses on top of the buns. I used an icing pen.
16. bake for 15 - 20 mins.
17. mix together 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp boiling water, then brush over hot buns for a glaze.

These are time consuming to make, but the process is oddly satisfying, particularly kneading the dough. It is a very tactile process. I would make them again, or possibly even see about making the dough as some kind of big loaf.

I'm not a fan of cream, so in the past this would have lead me to foolishly pass over recipes requiring cream, when really it's the flavour of straight cream that I don't like. My aversion to cream as an ingredient has fallen away thanks to Nigella's Tarragon Chicken from Kitchen.

Tarragon Chicken with Garlic Roasted Broccoli

adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe in Kitchen

For the tarragon chicken you will need:

• olive for frying
• 2 spring onions thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
• 2 chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 tsp salt
• slightly less than 1/2 cup cream
• 1 tsp dried tarragon

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a casserole dish with a lid and then fry spring onions and 1/2 tsp dried tarragon for a minute or so.
2. While that fries, remove any visible fat from the chicken breasts and use the flat side of the knife to bash the breasts to thin them out.
3. Put the chicken into the pan and cook for 5 minutes without turning. You want them to develop a bit of a golden tinge.
4. Turn over the breasts and add the white wine. Let it bubble up and then add the salt.
5. Put the lid on and leave to simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
6. Remove the chicken breasts and set aside.
7. Bring the liquid to the boil, add the cream and more dried tarragon, and stir until thickened.
8. At this point I add the chicken back to the casserole and coat it in the sauce, but you could just pour it over the top as Nigella does.

For the Garlic Roasted Broccoli you will need:

• 1 head of broccoli, washed
• 3 tsp crushed garlic
• 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

1. Chop the broccoli into bite sized pieces, discarding the stalk.
2. In a casserole dish, combine the broccoli, garlic, sugar and oil. I do this with my hands, making sure the broccoli is thoroughly coated.
3. Roast in a 180 degree oven for 15 minutes, or until broccoli is slightly blackened on the ends and is slightly crispy.

The sugar combined with the garlic gives the broccoli a savoury caramelised flavour, which complements the creamy chicken nicely.

I'm still on holiday from work (starting back next Monday) but my boyfriend is already back. I wanted to take some time this week to stock the freezer with some meals for when we are both back to the the daily routine of adulthood. To that end I intended to make a pie today and portion it before freezing to make 3 nights of meals. I made the pie filling (recipe to come later) but that is as far as I got because due to my other exertions today, I ran out of butter so couldn't make the dough. It was also so hot today, and so hot in the kitchen, that I couldn't face more time in front of the oven. That will be a task for tomorrow.

The reason I ran out of butter? Nigella Lawson's Devil's Food Cake from Kitchen. I think Kitchen is my favourite book of hers. It was sort of gifted to me by a friend at the end of second year law as a thank you (and I say sort of, because she actually gave me How to be a Domestic Goddess, which I already had but she suspected I might and gave me an exchange card with which I gratefully got Kitchen) and is probably the cookbook I use the most.

Devil's Food Cake

adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe in Kitchen

For the cake you will need:

• 50g cocoa powder
• 100g dark cane sugar (Nigella says dark muscovado sugar - this was the closest I could get)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 125g soft butter
• 225g high grade flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 size 8 eggs

For the icing you will need:

• 1/2 cup water
• 30g dark cane sugar
• 125g butter
• 300g dark chocolate buttons
• 100g icing sugar (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Mix the cocoa powder and 100g dark cane sugar in a bowl. Pour in boiling water, mix and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl (everything will eventually end up in this bowl).
4. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder.
5. Add the vanilla essence to the creamed butter and sugar and mix lightly.
6. Crack one egg into the bowl with the butter and mix, before adding some flour and mixing then cracking the second egg into the bowl.
7. Mix in the remaining flour.
8. Fold the cocoa/sugar/water mixture into the butter and flour.
9. Distribute the mixture evenly between two sandwich cake tins. The type I have can't be lined with baking paper so I greased them with cooking oil first, but if you are using ordinary tins then do line with baking paper.
10. Nigella's recipe says to bake for 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clear. I checked at 20 minutes and the cakes were already getting toward well done so any longer would have been a disaster for me.
11. While the cakes are baking, put the water, cane sugar and butter in a small pot on low heat, stirring occasionally.
12. When butter is melted, take the pot off the heat, add the chocolate buttons and stir until all the chocolate is melted and the icing is smooth.
13. When the cakes have cooled enough for icing, mix the icing sugar into the cooled icing. Spread icing over the top of one cake (not quite to the edge as the compression from the top cake will spread the icing out), place the other cake on top and spread icing over the top of that cake too.

I added in the icing sugar because, although Nigella said the icing was meant to be runny and never quite set, it was really too thin for my liking and I couldn't see how I could use it to ice the cakes (particularly as a filling) without it all flowing away. I also wanted it to set because my boyfriend wouldn't be able to take any to work with him if the icing was sticking to everything. This might be because I used less butter than she suggested due to running out. However, I really liked the result after adding the icing sugar. The icing was still runny so that it flowed down the sides of the cake giving me a nice effect, but once I refrigerated it, it set and became fudgey.

The cake itself was rich but not overpoweringly so. It didn't rise as much as I expected it to, making it quite dense.