Easy bakes to make lockdown a little sweeter

Satisfy your afternoon cravings with treats that are indulgent, quick to make and can be adapted to different ingredients, says Angela Hartnett

This week, an eightyear-old boy and his family sent me a picture of them all making home-made pasta in a pasta machine. It is at least one positive thing to come out of lockdown, that people are spending time in the kitchen together.

Baking bread has certainly become a national obsession – but biscuits, cookies and cakes are an easy alternative. It might not feel essential to go shopping for them, so for when you’re craving something sweet, it’s probably better to bake them at home.

If you haven’t been able to source ingredients like sugar, flour and eggs, these recipes can be cut out and kept for when times are more certain – though flapjacks are a good option if you have plenty of oats but no flour. If you only have plain rather than self-raising flour, add a little baking powder (one teaspoon per 100g flour). And if you don’t have hazelnuts or chocolate, you can experiment with raisins, spices such as ground ginger, and other nuts like almonds or chopped Brazil nuts.

Sometimes by substituting or adding something you’ve found at the back of the cupboard, you end up with something unexpectedly delicious, so play around with chocolate, coffee, almond or vanilla flavours to amuse yourself.

The honeycomb overleaf is an alternative to nipping out for a Crunchie bar, but boiling sugar can be a challenge – make sure you get it to the right temperature and cool it before you dip it in the chocolate. And be sure to allow the cookies above to cool properly before you put them in containers – that’s if you don’t eat them all in one sitting.

Adding what you’ve found in the cupboard can result in something unexpectedly delicious