How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking

I bought this book because of the name, but it’s an excellent book of recipes! I’ve got so many marked and I can’t wait to get baking! I highly recommend this book! She takes the pain out of baking fancy desserts, and I love that!

A passionate home cook that has been honing her cooking skills for the last 25 years, concentrating on Italian cooking for the last 10 years, writes this review. My favorite cookbooks are "The Professional Chef" by the Culinary Institute and "Culinary Artistry". With more than 500 cookbooks in my collection I am usually disappointed in my recent cookbook acquisitions. However, I feel that this book is a wonderful addition to any cookbook library. The book is subdivided as follows: 1. Cakes 2. Cookies, Scones and Muffins 3. Pies 4. Desserts 5. Chocolate 6. Children 7. Christmas 8. Bread and Yeast 9. The Domestic Goddess's Pantry I am one of those crazy people that cook to relax, but I am much better cook than baker. That being said, the recipes in this book seem to be fool proof. Every recipe that I have tried from this book has turned out perfectly every time. I cannot say the same thing for other baking endeavors in my past. The recipe for Ricciarelli (Sienese macaroons) is absolutely amazing. Wow, are these cookies good and fairly easy to make. If you are looking for a couple of "knock their socks off" kind of recipes try the Molten Chocolate Babycakes, and the Irish Blue Cheese crackers. Both these recipes are simple yet very impressive. I think that part of the reason I love Nigella is that Nigella and I both love Italy. Italian cooking heavily influenced this book, and that is a wonderful thing in my opinion. If you love to cook, but aren't as good a baker, give this book a try. I feel like such an accomplished baker when I use Nigella's recipes. This book gave me the confidence to try the more involved bakery products in "The Professional Chef" which turned out better than expected. In my opinion baking is much more a scientific process of chemical reactions. But, with a little more practice everyone's baking can improve. This book is a great place to start.

Most of the time when I browse the cookbook aisle at my local bookstore, I'm faced with a never-ending array of cookbooks with a couple of good recipes but mostly stuff that I'll never make. It is hard to find a cookbook that will end up being a treasured repository of personal and family favorites - they just don't come along that often.When I picked this book up, I thought the name was just a good gimmick, a way to get people to take a look. I was doubtful that there would be much substance behind the nice photography and catchy name. How wrong I was! As I went through this book, the exciting and fun looking recipes amazed me. The recipes weren't all new or flashy, but they were uniformly inspiring. The first recipe in the book is actually a simple lemony loaf cake recipe... but it was the first thing I made because it sounded so yummy! On top of the recipes themselves, the commentary from the author helped me to become enthusiastic about the recipes and about baking in general.The overall style of the cookbook is really nice. Great pictures for almost all of the recipes. Clear instructions in the recipes themselves. The introduction to each recipe was very well written. Many recipes had variations and other ideas listed.This cookbook is definitely not for everyone. It does have a British slant both in the commentary and in some of the recipes. For example, there are several recipes for different kinds of mincemeat pies that I'm doubtful I'll be making anytime soon. There are also more subtle ways the British slant comes out, especially in the choice of ingredients. For me, this just added to the charm of the cookbook. The only negative comment I have about the cookbook is that in some cases, I would have liked an explanation of WHY a certain technique was being used. For example, in a recipe for a chocolate loaf cake, you are instructed to alternate adding tablespoons of hot water with tablespoons of flour. I would really like to know why and that type of explanation would have fit in well with the overall style of the book, but it was missing.Overall, a great and fun cookbook that gave me some inspiration for the holiday season and actually got me back into my kitchen when I was feeling a bit "burnt out" on baking.

This absolutely extraordinary cookbook is a Godsend. After a long day at the office I come home, crack the book and flow into the relaxing rhythm of its recipes. The author calmly walks me through the process of creating masterpieces of culinary comfort. How about a steaming, aromatic potato, parsley and leek tart on a cold winter's night, or a layered butterscotch cake, dripping with heavenly goo? Recipes, heretofore, considered best left to experts, are made ridiculously simple. Consider Nigella's puff pastry, a thing of beauty. It is produced (using a food processor, no less!) in one quarter of the standard time required in other recipes. As a matter of fact, this puff pastry is the only one I've ever made successfully, and it was a cinch. My husband and children went nuts when I pulled it from the oven. I just sat back and reaped the accolades.