I like Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks.

I got a used copy of Nigella Bites (2002) the other day and prepared two recipes thus far:  chocolate fudge cake (page 47) and liptauer (page 161).  I am always on the lookout for a good chocolate cake recipe, but I can honestly say that this isn’t one.  The cake itself came out dry and bland and is not worth the ingredients or multiple bowls you’ll need.  I have numerous “toss everything in one bowl and let her rip”- type recipes that turn out a much better product.  The frosting was also just so-so.  That said, my mother loved the cake because it was not overly sweet and she liked the heavy, buttery frosting.

The liptauer, however, was great.  (Liptauer is what Californians would incorrectly call a schmear for bagels, even though schmear means “a little,” as in, “a bagel with a schmear,” which, when ordered in New York City, would get you a bagel with a little plain cream cheese.) . I had an Austrian chef-instructor in cooking school who talked fondly about liptauer.  It’s a cheese spread that you make by processing everything together in one fell swoop and then pressing the resulting mass into a mold.  You eat this stuff on bagels or good, hearty bread – the kind that can stand up to the caraway seeds, which provide a pronounced flavor to the mix.  The only thing I suggest is to drain the cottage cheese she calls for – since I assume you’ll be using the runny cottage cheese that is prevalent in the US.  My guess is that people in Europe use quark, which is something like cottage cheese but not easy to get here and considerably more expensive.  If you can find dry curd cottage cheese, that’ll solve your problem altogether.  Please do not use fat free cheese or you won’t get a good mouth feel – and that goes for the cream and cottage cheeses.  Use real block cream cheese, sil vous plait.  I have no photos of the items, so I substituted Berry, just to add a little color to the entry.