Take one cake… Nigel Slater’s recipe for a festive fragrance

Some people judge others by their shoes. Some, by their eyes. For Nigel Slater, it’s all about scent. “I always remember what people smell like – if they’ve got a particular fragrance on, or they haven’t. It tends to stay with me,” says the food writer. 

We’re sitting in the tranquil drawing room of his late-Georgian house in north London. If the atmosphere is rarefied, the smell of freshly baked chocolate and spiced ginger cake puts me at ease. Slater carefully pours out…