This is 100% Nigella’s recipe that I love and make every year. She is, to me, the queen of cakes and I am so grateful to her for everything she has brought to my kitchen. This loaf cake is suer comforting in a time of need… and also want.
Rosemary Loaf Cake
250g soft unsalted butter
200g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs
210g self-raising flour
90g plain flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
needles from a 10 cm stalk of rosemary, chopped small but not too fine (around 2 teaspoons) and a full sprig of rosemary for decoration
4 tablespoons of milk
1-2 tablespoons rosemary sugar or caster sugar
23 × 13 × 7 loaf tin, buttered and lined
Preheat the oven to 170 / gas mark 3. Cream the butter, adding sugar when it’s really soft, and cream both together until pale and smooth and light. Beat in the eggs one at a time an fold a spoonful of flour after each addition, then add the vanilla. Fold in the rest of the flour - a rubber spatula helps - and fold in the chopped rosemary. Thin the batter with milk - Nigella recommends here a soft, dropping consistency. Pour the batter - with some scraping - into the waiting line tin. Sprinkle the top with the remaining sugar and place the rosemary sprig in the centre of the batter. Cook for 1 hour, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. I find it can take a little longer (around 1 hour 15) and sometimes I cover the top with foil towards the end if the top looks like it is browning too much. Once cooked, leave the cake to cool on a rack in it’s tin, and when it’s cold, wrap in foil. It keeps well, I quite like a splodge of cream with it, too. Serves 8 - 10.
