You only need to have a quick scroll of your various social media platforms to realise that literally everyone you know has gone absolutely bonkers for baking while we’ve been stuck in iso.
With all this spare time on our hands, folks have been turning their backs on bakery delights and store-bought alternatives and adopting a ‘do it yourself’ mantra in the kitchen. The result? An endless stream of Instagram pics of homemade bread, pasta, cakes, pastries – and most popular, banana bread.
Apparently, banana bread has even become the most Googled recipe in the world. The question is, what’s with this sudden obsession with baking?
We recently spoke to expert nutritionist Susie Burrell on It’s Been A Big Day For… who spilled the tea on our iso baking habits, and offered her tips on how to make your creations healthy and delicious. LISTEN BELOW:
“It’s a really great time for bakers,” she said. “We know that food we make at home is generally much healthier for us and in the case of banana bread – it’s such an amazing opportunity to make a really wholesome, nourishing snack food.”
As for keeping your banana bread healthy, Burrell suggested using wholemeal flour, milk or Greek yoghurt, and olive oil instead of butter. Pro tip: throw blitzed banana skins into your mix for extra fibre.
Baking isn’t just good for our tummies and taste buds, it’s also proven to alleviate stress. Clinical psychologist Dr. Mary McNaughton-Cassill told Delish, “There is a rhythm or pattern to baking. It feels familiar and can even lead to a mindful state.”
Speaking to Delish, Dr. McNaughton-Cassill also explained that many aspects of our lives don’t have a predictable or a “tangible outcome,” and baking or cooking offers a visual accomplishment. “I think this is why there has been such a resurgence of interest in crafts, home remodeling, and cooking,” she said. “We want to feel that we can still do things that impact the environment.”
Flexing your masterchef skills is also great for creativity. “The smell of spices and vanilla are comforting, and [they] often remind us of happy times,” Dr. McNaughton-Cassill says.
“Olfactory scents are particularly linked to areas of the brain that involve emotions and memory,” she suggested. “Mixing inert substances together, and watching them rise can bring out the mystic, or chemist, in all of us.”
So, there you have it. As well as making our social media feeds look pretty, baking and cooking is great for our brains and bodies – whether you have a tendency to burn the banana bread, or not.
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