Looking to try a new recipe for your quarantine baking? Look no further!

I have always loved to bake. Just ask my parents – they’ll likely recount the time I tried to bake a chocolate cake (unsupervised), substituting peppermint extract when I couldn’t find the vanilla. I thought it made sense – chocolate and mint taste great together! It was not great. It tasted like soap. So it ended up crumbled out on the back deck for the birds and squirrels.

Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve always loved baking. It’s my favorite stress-reliever. But as I got older, and especially through law school, I faced a conundrum: I was stressed all the time, but never had enough time to bake. Between picking a recipe, buying ingredients, doing the baking, and the clean-up – it was just too much to fit in between classes, homework, studying, and working.

Enter: quarantine baking. I am stressed, certainly. But, with social distancing, I have had all the time in the world, and I have been baking up a storm. I’ve been keeping a list of all the recipes I’ve used over the past six weeks, and figured I’d share them so you can add to your own quarantine baking repertoire.

Funfetti Birthday Cake from My Evil Twin’s Kitchen

Poor J – his birthday fell right at the beginning of the Stay Home, Stay Safe order here in Vermont. I usually bake him a cake, but wanted to make this one extra special. He technically requested vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, but I thought the sprinkles added into the batter would jazz it up a bit. This recipe from My Evil Twin’s Kitchen was perfect, and it made a HUGE cake. I did use this vanilla buttercream instead of the frosting in the recipe, so I can’t comment on that part. But the cake itself was delicious, and J and I (unfortunately) ate the whole thing!

Everything Bagel Dutch Oven Bread from Handmade Weekly

This bread – where do I even begin. It’s so damn good. And so easy! Towards the beginning of the stay home order, our local bagel shop temporarily closed. We had a weekly tradition of going there for a Sunday bagel, so we were sad. I saw this recipe while scrolling through Pinterest and thought it might satisfy our bagel cravings until they re-opened. I was not wrong. Toasted with a little butter? It’s *chef’s kiss* perfect.

No knead breads like this one are the exact reason why I have a dutch oven. Just mix the ingredients together, let the dough rise overnight, and then bake. Although the recipe does call for yeast, it’s only half a teaspoon. I’ve been able to get at least 3 loaves out of one envelope of instant yeast. If you, like me, are having difficulties finding yeast at the grocery store, this is a good recipe to stretch what you have and still satisfy any homemade bread cravings.

Banana Bread from the Kitchn

Banana bread seems to be the quarantine baking staple. This recipe is the perfect basic banana bread recipe, and it’s very flexible. I had some buttermilk left over from baking the funfetti cake, so I used that in place of regular milk. It came out perfectly moist and delicious, and now I will only use buttermilk in banana bread. I’ve made this recipe a total of four times this quarantine, and most recently used it to make muffins instead of bread. Highly recommended!

Chewy Sugar Cookies from A Latte Food

J and I had a stay-at-home date night and were craving something sweet after dinner. These came together quickly and with a few basic ingredients we already had on hand. The recipe recommends the optional addition of almond extract, but I omitted it. It’s a perfect recipe for quarantine baking because you won’t need to run out to the grocery store for anything special.

Best Homemade Cinnamon Rolls Ever by The Stay at Home Chef

I baked these for Easter morning. Normally we spend Easter with family, but since we couldn’t do that this year, I wanted to make something special and these fit the bill. I baked them in two separate pans and dropped one off with J’s parents.

This one is definitely a “special occasion” quarantine baking recipe because it uses a lot of yeast. Another two caveats: first, the icing recipe makes a TON. If I make these again, I’ll probably half or two-thirds the recipe. Second, I had to bake them a lot longer than the recipe called for. It could have been my oven, or the fact that I baked them in two separate 9-inch cake pans rather than a 9×13 pan, but I figured I should warn you anyway. Regardless, they were fantastic!

Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

A classic for a reason. I used one stick of salted butter and one stick of unsalted butter because that was all I had at the time, and they still came out great. But be warned – the recipe makes five dozen cookies. If you are a household of one or two, you may want to make some no-contact cookie deliveries. Or eat them all yourself – I won’t judge!

Easy Buttermilk Biscuits by Live Well Bake Often

Did you ever wake up one morning and think, “wow I really need a biscuit RIGHT NOW.” No? Just me? Ok then, moving on. When we were living in Boston, J and I would get brunch at a Southern-style restaurant every so often, and their biscuits were the BOMB. Since we can’t drive all the way down to Boston, let alone eat at a restaurant, I set out to make my own biscuits. These were soft, flaky perfection. I topped mine with a little butter and raw honey and just about died. Plus, we still have some leftover to eat with soup later. Perfect!

Have you done your own quarantine baking? What recipes have you used? Let me know in the comments below!

With love,

A