Liberty Belle's favourite lockdown bakes

Cooking at university is often a challenge. It can be difficult to find recipes which are affordable and worth your time, especially when cooking for one. These recipes are perfect for broadening your repertoire this lockdown, without emptying your pocket or eating up your day.

Thom Yum Soup:

When cooking for one you need easy, quick and nutritious recipes to make dishes which are delicious, without being time-consuming. Thom Yum soup is the perfect solution.

Ingredients (to serve one):

• Either pork chop, chicken, fish or tofu

• One portion of thick udon noodles

• One tbsp. Thom Yum or red curry paste

• 4 thin slices of stem root ginger

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 tbsp sour cream or coconut milk

• A selection of vegetables, depending on your preferences. I would recommend:

  • 1 carrots

  • ½ red pepper

  • 3 florets of broccoli (chopped small)

  • ½ onion

Method:

1. Cube your meat or tofu and slice your vegetables into small pieces (fit for eating with a spoon in soup).

2. Fry the tbsp of Thom Yum/red curry paste in two tsp of oil over a high heat for thirty seconds before adding the meat or tofu. Fry for around four minutes.

3. Add your vegetables to the frying pan and fry everything for a further two minutes. Lower the heat if the oil is spitting.

4. Add a cup of hot water along with your ginger slices and sour cream/coconut milk. Allow to simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Whilst the soup is simmering, boil the udon noodles in a separate pan. They will take around five minutes to cook.

6. Add the noodles to the soup, serve up and enjoy!

Pound Cake:

If you’re anything like me then you don’t have the fancy equipment at university that you took for granted at home: a toasted-sandwich maker can’t survive in my student house, let alone an electric whisk. However, if you need that baking-fix in lockdown, a pound cake only requires simple easy-to-find ingredients and if you’ve got a spoon, a tin and a set of scales, then you’re ready to bake.

The basic idea of a pound cake is that you use the same quantity of the core ingredients (flour, butter, eggs, and sugar). Originally, it would have been the titular pound of each, which would make a fairly large cake (probably about twice the size of an average loaf tin), but if you’re after a smaller bake, just switch the quantities to something smaller. If you do this, I would recommend around 200g of each of the four core ingredients, which means reducing the rest of the ingredients by about half.

Ingredients:

• A pound of flour

• A pound of sugar

• A pound of butter

• 8 large eggs (this will come to approximately a pound in weight)

• 2½ tsp baking powder

• 7 tbsp whole milk

• 2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180˚C.

2. Line a loaf tin with baking parchment, or butter and flour it, shaking off the excess flour. For a pound cake which actually uses a pound of each ingredient, I recommend a ten-inch one. A twelve-inch bundt pan also works brilliantly too.

3. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. An electric whisk is always the easiest way to do this, but you can use a spoon or handheld whisk if you’re willing to be patient.

4. In a separate bowl, combine your eggs, milk and vanilla essence. Mix until the egg yolks are entirely broken and everything is fully combined.

5. Add the two mixtures together by pouring the eggs, milk and vanilla into the bowl with the butter and sugar and mixing well. You may need to add them slowly in order to combine them fully.

6. Little by little, add the flour and baking powder, mixing until the batter is smooth.

7. Put the mixture into the tin, smoothing it to make it even.

8. Bake for between an hour and ten minutes and an hour and fifteen, checking it every five minutes after the initial hour. Check the cake by inserting a skewer into it; if there are a few moist crumbs on it when it comes out, the cake is ready. It’s very important not to overbake a pound cake because it will become very dry and bland.

9. Let the cake cool before removing it from the tin. Pound cakes can benefit from an inventive approach to icing! A simple icing made from icing sugar and water tastes wonderful, or try from poking a few holes in it and drizzling lemon juice all over it.

This light and fluffy cake is a blank canvas for you to explore. Try adding different flavours in – perhaps cinnamon to make a warm, wintry bake, or chocolate chips for some variety.

Edited by Pia Cooper