No more banana bread: Five easy recipes to fill your house with that freshly baked smell

While banana bread may have been the star of the last lockdown, this time we’re branching out, with these equally simple baked treats.

As the country faces another lockdown, there is perhaps a small comfort in knowing what helped us get though last time. Plenty of walks outside, calling family and friends to catch up, and finding a new favourite series to enjoy.

Banana bread managed to become the unofficial baking project for the last lockdown, with several loaves a day appearing on my social media, and even more tweets from people complaining about them. However, it’s not hard to see why it was a popular choice: it’s easy to make, the ingredients are straightforward and it’s delicious – a non-taxing distraction from everything that was going on.

If, however, you want to try something different this time around, there are plenty of equally simple recipes that offer an alternative. Here are five delicious ones that we love (and none would look terrible on Instagram, just saying).

Nigella’s lemon tendercake with blueberry compote

Although it looks quite fancy, this cake is made from very simple ingredients, and is in fact vegan as it doesn’t require either butter or eggs. The secret ingredient is a tin of coconut milk, which lends both sweetness and richness.

Skip the compote if you prefer, but it would work with any berry you have, including any that might be lurking in your freezer.

No Messin’ Bakery’s brown butter cookies

Everyone needs a good cookie recipe up their sleeve, and the addition of browned butter to this one elevates it far beyond the average.

The recipe does ask you to freeze the dough for at least 24 hours, but you can use this to your advantage. Simply bake as many cookies as you need at once, and leave the rest in the freezer, ready to bake when a cookie craving hits.

Bon Appétit’s fall fruit galette

A recent discovery of mine, galettes are the perfect way to achieve the deliciousness of your favourite fruit pie, but without the effort of neatly forming it in a tin.

They work with almost any fruit filling (add cornflour for softer fruits), and always look ‘rustic’ rather than messy, no mater how slapdash your pastry skills are.

If making pastry isn’t your thing, there’s no shame in using shop-bought, just don’t skip the cream and sugar wash.

Top With Cinnamon’s flourless browned butter brownies

Can you tell I have a thing for browned butter? Trust me, it makes anything better, including these fudgy brownies, which are also suitable for coeliacs as they use coconut instead of wheat flour.

Coconut flour is relatively easy to find in large supermarkets and health stores, and apart from that the other ingredients are very straightforward.

Nadiya Hussain’s peanut butter and jelly traybake

One of those recipes that you can pull together with just things from your cupboard, it makes use of jam and peanut butter to create a simple but delicious traybake.

It’s also very quick to make, so even if you just have half an hour between Zoom calls, you still have time to whip up something sweet.

Featured image: Bon Appétit

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