Nigel Slater’s recipes for sticky roast sweet potatoes, and hazelnut cake with rhubarb and cream (2024)

A slice of tender cake, a few fallen crumbs at its side, a spoonful of whipped cream and a little puddle of fruit. I ask for nothing more at tea time at the weekend and am happy if such crumbs of comfort are offered up as a dessert on other occasions.

There is a cake and fruit for every season. On an early summer’s day, an almond sponge with a pool of cherries; in autumn, stewed damsons, their purple juice bleeding into a triangle of fudgy vanilla cheesecake. At this point in winter-spring, a soft-crumbed hazelnut cake, a pink tangle of rhubarb and a small mound of whipped cream – perhaps flecked with vanilla – will fit the bill. If there is no fruit, I will eat my cake with apricot jam, warmed in a small saucepan then trickled over, sticky and glowing.

I usually bake or stew my rhubarb, but I have found that when chopped into short lengths and tossed in sugar, you can cook it under the grill. You must watch it carefully, but it is a quick way to render your stalks soft and sweet.

I have been standing in carb corner all week to counteract the wet and chilly weather. Sweet potatoes have the softest flesh of all the root vegetables. Baked, they fluff up like soufflé, exuding tears of dark caramel from under their soft skins as they approach readiness. I balance the sugar hit with heat and salt – a paste of ginger, chilli and soy to brush over the roasted potato. I serve it with steamed rice (add a little lime juice as you eat) or pile the slices of hot, sticky potato next to grilled chicken or perhaps a baked mushroom or two.

Hazelnut cake with rhubarb and cream

Serves 8

butter 250g
light muscovado sugar 125g
golden caster sugar 125g
skinned hazelnuts 200g, plus a handful to finish
eggs 3
self-raising flour 65g
double cream to serve

For the rhubarb:
rhubarb 350g
caster sugar 3 tbsp

You will need a deep, 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin.

Cut the butter into small pieces and beat together with the sugars for a good 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Regularly scrape the mixture down from the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3. Line the base of the cake tin with baking parchment.

Place a shallow pan over a moderate heat, add the hazelnuts and let them colour to a pale gold, moving them around so they colour evenly.

Using a food processor, work two-thirds of the hazelnuts to fine crumbs – roughly the same texture as ground almonds – then set aside. Process the remaining nuts, grinding them rather less. Cut the additional handful of nuts in half and set aside.

Break the eggs into a small bowl, beat them lightly with a fork, mixing whites and yolks together, then introduce them in 2 or 3 batches to the butter and sugar, beating thoroughly between each addition. If they curdle slightly, don’t worry, just add a tbsp of the flour. Tip in both lots of processed hazelnuts and mix lightly, followed by the flour.

Transfer the mixture to the lined cake tin using a rubber spatula. Gently smooth the surface then scatter over the halved nuts. Bake in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, covering the surface lightly with foil for the last 10.

Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes before running a palette knife around the edge to free it from the tin, then let it cool and remove from the cake tin. Cool on a wire rack.

For the rhubarb: heat an overhead (oven) grill. Trim the stalks, cut into short lengths – roughly 4cm each – rinse briefly with water, then toss with the sugar, so the stalks are lightly coated.

Tip the rhubarb into a grill pan (I line mine with kitchen foil which makes cleaning so much easier) and cook under the heated grill, quite close to the element, for 5-7 minutes until the rhubarb is soft and the sugar has browned a little.

Lightly whip the cream until it stands in soft peaks. Serve slices of the cake with the warm, grilled rhubarb and a spoonful of the cream.

Sticky roast sweet potatoes

Use a non-stick baking dish or roasting tin, or perhaps line your tin with foil. Some steamed rice would be good here.

Serves 2

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.

Peel the sweet potatoes and slice in half lengthways. Cut each half into 4 or 5 long segments, then place them in a roasting tin. Trickle with the oil and season lightly with salt. Roast them for about 25 minutes, until they are nearing tenderness. Check regularly with the point of a knife.

Make the dressing: mash the garlic to a paste with a little salt. A pestle and mortar is good for this. Peel the ginger and grate on a fine-toothed grater, then add it to the garlic. Using a fork or small whisk add the soy sauce, mirin and rice wine vinegar then whisk in the honey and the dried chilli flakes.

When the sweet potatoes are ready, spoon the dressing generously over then return to the oven. Bake for a further 15 minutes, watching carefully so the dressing doesn’t burn. Serve hot, with the sticky juices, and rice if you wish.

Follow Nigel on Instagram @NigelSlater