With everyone staying at home, we’re all looking at new ways to fill our time and baking is just one of many, but you might not have what you need to make the baked goods you're wishing for. We’ve come up with a few baking alternatives and tips to help you when staying at home.
Making homemade yeast
Yeast is proving to be pretty hard to get your hands on at the moment, and you might be dreaming of the smell of freshly baked bread for the weekend. You can make your very own yeast at home!
Ingredients: All you need is 3 to 4 tablespoons of fresh or dried fruit, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 cup of water (filtered is best) and a jar.
Method: Pop your fruit into your jar, add your sugar to help speed up the fermentation process and then add your water. Loosely cover your jar, allowing air to still escape and place at room temperature for a few days. Stir your mixture once a day.
You should start to see bubbles appear at the top of your jar and you should notice a slightly wine-like scent coming from the mixture, that means it's ready to use! Pop in your fridge and use as needed.
You will need to feed your yeast regularly. If it’s in the fridge you’ll only need to feed it once per week, just add one cup of flour and one cup of lukewarm water to your mixture and mix until smooth, then let it sit at room temperature for 2 to 4 hours so it can ferment and continue growing.
Making homemade self-raising flour
You thought the recipe stated plain flour, but actually, it’s self-raising and you don’t have any, luckily you can make you own from home, you just need baking powder and all-purpose flour. Simply add two teaspoons of baking powder to each cup of flour and mix thoroughly before use.
Blind baking your pie
If you need to blind bake a pie crust or tart and you don't have any baking beans then go through your cupboards and see what dried staples you can use instead. Uncooked rice or sugar works well, just make sure you cover your pastry with baking paper or foil first, that way you won’t find grains of rice in your pie later on or have an incredibly sweet pastry.
Utensil alternatives
So you've got all your ingredients together and are about to start baking but realise you're missing a rolling pin or baking paper. We've put a few alternatives below to help out:
- Egg separator - use an empty water bottle, squeeze over the yolk and then let go to suck it up
- Meat mallet – the bottom of a frying pan, wrap your meat in cling film first to avoid any mess
- Rolling pin – a bottle of wine, which you can also enjoy afterwards too.
- Sifter – use a whisk to mix through dry ingredients, this will help remove any lumps
- Baking paper – use the old fashioned method and simply grease up your pan with butter or cooking spray
Ingredient replacements
You've got all the utensils you need but now have realised you're missing one or two ingredients, take a look below and see if we have an alternative for you.
- 1 Egg – ¼ ripe banana or ¼ cup of unsweetened apple sauce
- ½ cup of bread crumbs – ½ cup of crushed oats or cereal
- 1 cup buttermilk – 1 cup of plain yoghurt or 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice – 1 teaspoon of white wine or ½ teaspoon of vinegar
- ½ cup of soy sauce – ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce mixed with 1 tablespoon of water
- 1 cup of honey – 1 ¼ cup of white sugar plus 1/3 cup of water
- 1 teaspoon vinegar – 1 teaspoon of lemon or lime juice or 2 teaspoons of white wine
Do you have any baking tips you would love to share or any other swaps for ingredients and utensils? Let us know below in the comments, we'd love to hear them.
