Gateau reine de saba

Ingredients for cake: bittersweet chocolate, unsalted butter, almond essence, strong coffee, eggs (omitted – catastrophically for the cohesion of the cake), caster sugar, almond meal

Ingredients for glaze: bittersweet chocolate, caster sugar, corn syrup (what in tarnation? see short rant below), unsalted butter

Corn syrup rant: I wasted hours trawling supermarkets and not finding this product, which I had never – and still have never – seen. Extensive Googling told me that (a) Nigella's US editors replace golden syrup in her recipes with corn syrup because the former isn't widely available in the US and the latter is, (b) and yet they are by no means the same thing, (c) golden syrup is probably nicer anyway. All of which led me to wonder whether delicious. has been given an Americanised version of the recipe accidentally. Or am I just clueless? Do any of you lovely readers know corn syrup?

Anyhow, the verdict: fell apart messily (for which only myself to blame, I guess – not only thirding the quantities but also leaving out egg entirely) but tasted quite delicious, especially the icing (isn't 'glaze' another American term?). Highly suggested for birthdays. Still annoying about the corn syrup though.

Jammy dodgers

These worked really well and were quite yummy. They almost looked liked something you might buy in a shop – in a good way, not like Arnott's (not that there's anything wrong with Arnott's, maker of the incomparable Tim Tam) – which is extremely unusual for things baked by me. This leads me to believe that it's a genuinely foolproof recipe – score for delicious.! Sorry, the World Cup is infectious. And no egg either, excellent.

Anyway, ingredients: unsalted butter, caster sugar, plain flour, almond meal, lemon zest, raspberry jam, lemon juice. Oh, and I absolutely needed 1 tbsp of water to bind the dough and really do think others will too. So maybe not entirely foolproof – or maybe something was accidentally left out.

Use nice jam – it's the main taste, the biscuits themselves being quite gently flavoured.

Chocolate chunk scones

That's pronounced scoanes as in ice-cream cones, because these are American style scones.

This isn't a delicious. recipe; it's sort of my own. I recommend it to lazy, inaccurate cooks who require near-instant gratification. It started as someone else's recipe for lemon and ginger scones (brilliant ones that I can accidentally eat a whole batch of in an afternoon, which is why I don't make them all the time) and morphed repeatedly into this. The amounts are quite small, making six scone wedges.

1.25 cups sifted flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1/8 tsp sea salt, 1/8 cup caster sugar, 1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate, 1/8 cup butter, scant 1/2 cup milk OR instead of butter and milk, equivalent dollops of creme fraiche or sour cream (trust me)

• Heat oven to about 20OC
• Line baking sheet with Bake
• Mix all dry ingredients including chocolate
• Rub in butter (flashback to year 7 domestic science here)
• Mix in milk
• OR just mix in the sour cream or creme fraiche
• Knead briefly until smooth
• Roll into a ball and thence into a circle a bit less than 2 cm thick
• Cut into 6 wedges
• Bake for about 10 minutes
• Eat warm, spread with Lurpak butter.

Torta di riso (rice cake with lemon and almonds)

milk, caster sugar, arborio rice (used Carnaroli), eggs (non), almond meal, mixed peel (used fresh orange and lemon zest), vanilla extract, lemon juice, rum or brandy (used Amaretto of course), icing sugar to dust

If you like baked rice pudding you'll like this. If not, not. I do, which is lucky, but I wouldn't classify what I made as a cake. Maybe cakier with the eggs. Anyway it was very comforting on yet another bitter night.

Olive oil cake with glace fruit

Or, in this case, olive oil slice without glace fruit or the recommended chocolate drizzle. Believe me, both would have been entirely superfluous, as my version was very wicked indeed – more like Greek/Middle Eastern/Indian (can't quite put my finger on what I mean) confectionary than the innocent-looking cake in the delicious. picture.

Anyway, it's from the 'wicked' section of the mag and the ingredients are: extra-virgin olive oil, plain flour, baking powder, fine semolina, eggs (no – replaced quite randomly with thickened cream, because I'm not afraid of upping the fat content), caster sugar, amaretto (the love affair continues), icing sugar to dust and glace tangerines and melted chocolate to serve (no need).

I'm used to the way eggless cakes rise less, but this came out looking very dodgy indeed, as well as being clearly a slice rather than a cake. Basically it was leaking olive oil, which is not what anyone expects of a cake. At this point the bin looked like the sensible option, but I persisted. After much blotting with kitchen paper it looked better. I sliced it into small pieces, confectionary style and bit in gingerly – and I lerved it! Others – especially those who demand lightness from their treats – might not have but I love solid, syrupy sweet things to eat in small bits with tea or coffee (especially coffee, this one). My only disappointment was that the amaretto taste was subtler than I had imagined.

Verdict: a qualified success and clearly nothing like the original.

I'd be interested to hear what the egged version is like.