Forever Nigella: Street Party

I am a foodie. I’m constantly trying to enhance my knowledge of all things culinary.  I’m working on a interesting cookbook collection.  I enjoy watching cooking shows, (although I’m very selective).  I love learning about food history. I’m very interested in World Cuisine.  I’m up for a cooking challenge.  And I absolutely adore Nigella Lawson.

I recently learned of a new blogging event, Forever Nigella.  Each month a theme is announced and participants blog about any of Nigella’s recipes that fit the theme.  The winner is the one that exudes the most Nigella-ness.  I don’t know how much Nigella-ness I have in me, but a girl can try.

This month’s theme is “Street Party.”  Street Parties are a traditional way people in the U.K. celebrate major events like the upcoming Royal Wedding.  Street Party food is any food that you can serve to a crowd.  It happened that I had just the occasion to make a dish for a crowd yesterday.  We had a finger food fellowship after church Sunday night, so I whipped this up that afternoon while the kids had their naps.

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

That’s right, quadruple!  This moist cake includes both cocoa powder and chocolate chips in it’s silky batter.  After baking it is bathed in a glossy chocolate syrup and scattered with chocolate shavings.  It. Is. Scrumptious.  You may take it to serve to a crowd, but you will be secretly wishing for leftovers you can take home and greedily devour yourself, (preferably as a sneaky midnight snack).

Loaf cakes are great travelers, so this is perfect for taking to a gathering.  For serving to a large crowd, it’s a good idea to cut into thick slices and also down the middle to make more servings.  No one will complain about a small portion as this is so rich it should easily satisfy.

You can find this recipe in Nigella’s book Feast.  She also made this cake for her show Nigella Feasts, in the episode Food To Go.  You can find the recipe here too.

Are you a Nigella fan?  Find your inner Nigella and make something delicious. Nigella won’t let you down.

Here’s the rules:
Forever Nigella #4 “Street Party”
Challenge: To cook any Nigella recipe that would be suitable to bring to a street party i.e. any party food suitable for big groups.
Deadline: Sunday, May 1st at midnight wherever you are.

Round up: A few days later. Maybe a week. It depends how many of you enter.  The next challenge will be publicised as soon as this one ends and most likely before the Street Party round up.

There are:
No rules about how often you must take part
No rules about stuff being secret until certain dates (although you are encouraged to tease us on Twitter about what you are making)
No rules that everyone cook exactly the same thing
No rules about not being able to submit to any other blog contests – in fact Sarah actively encourages you to do this. Just make sure it doesn’t contravene any rules the other guys may have.

But there are 3 rules:
1. We want everyone to keep buying lots and lots of Nigella books so that she keeps writing them so you must NOT reproduce recipes verbatim as shown in Nigella’s publications. If you are sticking exactly to the original recipe, just tell us which book it was from and if available, provide a link to it on Nigella.com which publishes a lot (but not all) of her recipes. (You may also find some recipes on sites for some TV stations and newspapers).  Alternatively, you may blog an adapted Nigella recipe so long as you have changed at least two ingredients and write the directions in your own words. Tell us what you changed and why.
2. Publish your Forever Nigella blog post (in English) by the closing date including the latest Forever Nigella graphic and giving a link to this post and the Forever Nigella home page.  Your entry must have been published since the announcement post. You may only re-blog something from your archives if you republish it with the badge and links to this post before the deadline.
3. Email the details to me  and please Cc Sarah – I need your name, your blog name, a link to your post and a photo no more than 300 pixels wide. No billboard sized images please.

Street Party Round-Up

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