Nuts

A day of celebrity recipes, with mixed success. First up, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Jamaican Ginger Cake, as featured in the Guardian magazine last week. Then pistachio macroons a la Nigella Lawson. I haven't tried a recipe by either of them before so was interested to see how they work work out. Most of my cook books are not by celebrity cooks but I have yet to try a Nigel Slater recipe that did not work, not to mention that wasn't a pleasure to read.

So, the ginger cake. I was using electronic scales which turned themselves off just as I started measuring the golden syrup straight into a pan already including other ingredients so judged the quantity by eye only. I was missing All Spice and was slightly random with the amount of ginger I added so was prepared to allow some leeway if the finished cake was problematic. It wasn't. It is dark and gooey and a huge success, making me keen to seek out some of his other recipes. I do like recipes where you can dollop rather than being too exact so this was a very promising introduction. A baking ginger cake does fill the house with the most wonderful, welcoming smell and is far less of a cliche than bread or coffee. Very Sunday-ish.

And so to Nigella. I was planning on making pistachio macaroons by just switching the almond meal in the vanilla recipe for pistachio meal. I didn't think it would do any harm to google first to see what was out there and there was Nigella's recipe. The method was the same as usual but the proportions of ingredients and probably more significantly the cooking temperature and time were very different. Although these did taste good, the texture and appearance was more biscuity than anything. Really disappointing. Returning to google I discovered that I was not the only person to have had this outcome. That'll teach me not to read below the first two results.

Having said that, the pistachio buttercream recipe she gave was pretty good.

So, unwilling to end a day of macaroon baking on a down note (things have been going so well I didn't want to jinx my mojo or something) I did what I should have done in the first place and stuck to my usual recipe, simply switching the quantity of ground almonds for ground pistachios. The result is absolutely fantastic, meaning I now have two flavours well and truly sorted. Next up is either coffee or chocolate flavour.

Four batches in, other news: leaving the piped macaroons to sit for ten minutes before baing does help, lightly smoothing the top with a damp finger doesn't. Tapping the baking tray on the counter before baking does sort out air bubbles. A damp tea towel under the macaroons as they cool on their parchment does make them easier to lift off. And they really do benefit from being left alone for 24 hours (ideally 48) before icing. This time I'll be resting half in the fridge and half in a tin to see if it makes a difference but I'm pretty happy with my method now.

Looks like this particular Christmas plan is actually coming together. Though I'll need to find a recipe that calls for about 20 egg yolks when the time comes.