I like to spend my Thursdays doing everything I shouldn’t – browsing the internet, reading non-uni literature, (*ahem* Baby Sitters Club books) and baking frivolously. Today was a fairly exemplary Thursday, in that I baked two cakes (one of which I made up!)

Above: Remember this one? At the requests of Tim and Paul, and because there was – surprisingly – an errant can of the stuff in the fridge, I made the Chocolate Guinness Cake from Nigella’s Feast again, after only just having made it a couple of weeks ago for St Patrick’s Day. I have to say, if I were Homer Simpson the sight of the mixture for this cake, which begins as butter melted into the Guinness, would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Indeed, if I was a beer drinker, Guinness with chunks of butter floating in it would probably be my beverage of choice.

You think I’m bluffing, don’t you?

Above: It was as good as ever. Dark, dense, moist, complex, fabulous. What can I say? Go buy Feast! You won’t be sorry!

Above: I had an idea for a Pear and Nutmeg Custard Sponge in the middle of photography class yesterday. I quickly jotted down a rough recipe in my excercise book (and went back to paying attention straight away, don’t worry!) and tried it out today.

Mercifully, it worked! I don’t have the money to triple-test my recipes a la the Australian Woman’s Weekly (obviously I make a special exception for lentil soup) so I need things to work first time round.

Above: It tasted lovely, too – grandmotherly, somehow, with the pear and the nutmeg and the custard-softened crumb of the cake going marvelously well together. As I ate I mentally patted myself on the back for this burst of inspiration.

If you feel like being my test kitchen, I would not mind in the slightest 🙂 the idea of someone actually making my recipe would in fact make me seriously happy.

Pear and Nutmeg Custard Sponge

150g soft butter
150g sugar
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons custard powder
200g flour
2 t baking powder
1 t ground nutmeg
1 pear, diced
3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 C and butter and line a 21cm springform tin with baking paper. Beat the butter and sugar together till pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and custard powder at the same time, and beat till incorporated together. At this point, sift in the flour and baking powder, and add the nutmeg, diced pear, and milk, folding together gently. Spread into your prepared tin, and if you like, arrange some pear slices across the top like I did. Bake for 50 or so minutes, depending on your oven, till a skewer comes out clean. I found it took an hour in our oven, but they do vary. You may want to put some foil over the top for the last 20, if it is getting too brown. Finally, grate some fresh nutmeg over, or sprinkle over a little pre-ground. Slice into fat, golden wedges and eat with a cup of tea.

It is great fun thinking up recipes. I don’t know how people like Nigella end up with over 100 for their books though. I’ve only come up with about 15 max, and no one is going to want to buy a cookbook that woefully slim!

Today in the paper (in the ‘Life’ section) there was an article about Nigella, entitled “Curvy Goddess or Dumpy Frump: Too Much of A Good Thing?” The article ended up, characteristically, being about nothing much at all. Shame on you, Dominion Post, for having such a tabloid-style title, and for intimating that someone with Nigella’s hourglass figure is “dumpy.” However, thanks for the delicious picture of her. This picture is supposed to be showing how much larger Nigella has become in the last ten or so years, however I say she looks incredible. The article is poorly researched, describing her as a “celebrity chef” and then saying she has had no formal training as a cook. It makes much of her high calorie recipes and ignores the fact that much of her food is packed with vegetables (as I found out when I went through her books, armed with post-it notes)…

In music news (insofar as I can call my opinion news), two gals I am monumentally obsessed with at the moment are April March and Joan As Police Woman. This is all courtesy of Ange who is remarkably commited to ferrying excellent music from her computer to mine and Tim’s via memory sticks.

Check out “Eternal Flame” on Youtube by Joan As Police Woman – this song is seriously beautiful. And April March’s delightfully kooky Chick Habit, an English song off her largely French language album, can be found here – no music video though.

And if you reeeeeeally feel like indulging me, this video from eight years ago of Idina Menzel singing a song from The Wild Party musical, is one of the reasons that I truly love Youtube.

PS – I’m pretty sure I was joking about the butter and beer…but then as I said, I’m not a beer drinker, so who knows? 😉