A new month means a new book in my Cooking The Books challenge. For February’s challenge I’ve decided to use one of my favourite recipe books which I’ve had since 2004.  How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson helped me to gain confidence in baking and helped relieve the bereft feeling I had when my youngest child started school around the same time.

I’ve also chosen to bake from “How To Be A Domestic Goddess” as there’s a load of recipes I love the sound of in the book but have never got round to trying.

The idea from the Cooking The Books Challenge is that I bake at least one recipe from each chapter featured in the book.  This is more manageable and means I’m not baking stuff my family don’t like. (well I suppose that’s the plan, in theory). If I baked my way through the whole of a book as a challenge some recipes wouldn’t be worth baking as they just wouldn’t get eaten up!

How To Be A Domestic Goddess has nine chapters: Cakes, Biscuits, Bread and Yeast, Chocolate, Children, Christmas, Pies, Puddings and The Domestic Goddess’ Larder.  So that means nine bakes this month.  Hope I can fit them in!

Cakes- I’ve got my eye on Flora’s Famous Courgette Cake.  The picture of it looks so pretty with pistachios on top and I would just love to see my family’s face after they eat the cake when I tell them it contains the very vegetable they hate! They didn’t notice when I baked a courgette loaf last year!

Biscuits- I’m going to try the pretty, swirly Italian Biscuits.  I remember seeing some similar on holiday in Italy a couple of years ago and wanting to try them.  They’ll be perfect for my work colleague’s retirement tea party.

Pies; There are a lot of pies in this chapter that I know my family won’t eat but I think they’ll like the Potato Cheese and Onion Pies.  They’ll be great with some salad for a Saturday lunchtime.

Puddings: The Blueberry Boy Bait sounds really interesting, something I would love to try.  I’ve already “baited” my husband, think it was my banoffee pie and tiramisu that did it, though!

Chocolate- I noticed a delicious looking recipe for Chocolate Macaroons.  As I’m a newcomer to baking macaroons and it’s going to be Valentine’s Day this month, macaroons will be a perfect present for my hubby.

Kids-  Nigella has a recipe for Snickers and Peanut Butter Muffins in the Kids’ chapter of the book.  I can see my own kids demolishing these very quickly.

Bread and Yeast: This is my nemesis of the baking world but I want to get better at baking anything with yeast in it. So I’m going to try the Norwegian Cinnamon Buns.

The Domestic Goddess’ Larder- I’m not one who does make my own jam and curd on a regular basis, when I do try It doesn’t always go to plan. My larder/ cupboard is a dumping ground for cake tins and other stuff, there aren’t rows of jams and chutneys gleaming at me.So I’m keen to try the Lime Curd recipe in this chapter as it is meant to be a filling for the Courgette Cake.

So, that is the challenge for February.  Let’s see how I get on.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx