We are living through some really bad times. When things are bad, a lot of us turn to creative outlets to manage stress, and a lot of people have started baking while isolated at home because it takes some time, varying levels of effort and it’s a valuable skill that builds the more you do it.
While baking can be really fun and therapeutic for some, it can also be pretty inaccessible when you’re on a budget, living in a small space or all the grocery stores around you are completely out of staples like flour, sugar and eggs. Here are some tips for baking as a student on a budget, and hopefully you can find a baking project that brings you joy through a tumultuous time.
Use what you have
When you look in your cabinet or fridge, take stock of what you already have. Things like flour, sugar, oil, butter, eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder or soda, yeast, chocolate (bars, chips, cocoa powder, anything) and oats all are staples that you likely have one or two of. If you only have flour, baking powder, oil and cocoa powder, you can make a mug cake! If you have oats, butter and chocolate, you can make some no-bake chocolate oat balls. Consider if you can make something with what you already have so you don’t have to spend any more money.
Making substitutions
Sometimes the store is out of eggs. A few handy substitutions can be flax seeds, mashed banana or applesauce, which are likely more readily available in your house or local grocery store. If the store is out of all-purpose flour, maybe what you’re making can use whole wheat, gluten free or pastry flour instead. Just make sure you look into whether the substitution ratio is 1:1 or if the substitution even works. Baking is a science, so you do need to consider what you’re changing so it doesn’t end up ruining your food.
Read the comments
Some comments on recipes are like “I substituted heavy cream for water and it turned out horrible!” or something unhelpful like that, but some comments where people share substitutions or alterations they made to recipes can really help you if you’re wondering whether or not an ingredient or step is necessary. Recipes are usually tested a few times to make sure they’re right, but home cooks everywhere can also help guide you through their experiences.
Sourdough can be a waste
I know it looks so enticing to make sourdough starter when all your friends are posting their bubbly, fermented messes on Instagram. But sourdough requires being fed with flour every day for a while, and every day you will have to discard some of your starter before feeding it. It requires a lot of flour to get to the point where you can use your starter for a loaf of bread, and that loaf of bread will still require a lot of additional flour. If you want to make bread, I highly recommend just using store bought yeast, if you can manage to find any. If you already started on your starter, you can use your discard to make things like pancakes, crepes and crackers, to name a few.
Leaveners
Leaveners are pretty important in baking, because they dictate how your product rises. If you have baking powder or baking soda plus eggs, you can make lots of pastries like cakes, cookies, brownies and more. If you only have eggs, there are recipes for fudgier things like brownies that only require eggs as a leavener. If you only have yeast, you’re better off making bread. If you have no leaveners but you do have flour, you can make unleavened breads like matzo, lavash, roti and tortillas.
Consider yield
It’s really important to consider how much you’re making of this recipe. Do you want to halve the recipe to save ingredients and have a smaller, more personal-sized yield? If the recipe is difficult to divide, consider sharing what you make with your roommates or neighbours (from a distance) or even freeze or refrigerate uneaten portions. It’s important to make sure you don’t waste what you made by letting it go stale or mouldy. Bonus tip: stale bread makes amazing french toast. That’s the whole point of french toast.
Don’t waste your extras
If you had to go out to buy flour, sugar or a leavener of some kind, there’s a really good chance you have a lot of it left. Baking powder eventually loses its leavening power, flour expires after a few years and eggs expire pretty fast. Think about what you can do with the ingredients you have and when you have to use them by. If you have a lot, definitely consider using it again by making more with what you have, more of what you made on another day or even experimenting in small batches. If worse comes to worst, you can always be the reliable roommate that has some extra flour lying around.