When I study, I always get hungry. I also look for a way to waste time and avoid my study. Enter procrastibaking: the solution for both problems! Here are a few of my favourite procrastibaking recipes…
Choc-Peanut Butter Cookies
Chocolate and peanut butter is possibly one of the greatest combinations of all time, narrowly edged out by ginger beer and snail (I’ll let myself out). These cookies are perfect for a quick study break. If you want to get a bit fancier (read: kill more time), try melting some chocolate and dipping the cooled cookies in it before rolling them in crushed peanuts.
Mug Cakes
Living on campus? I’ve got your back. Mug cakes are perfect for late-night study sessions/procrastibaking sessions. They usually take around five minutes to make (and about five seconds to eat). If you’re not a blueberry fiend, try swapping for some other fruit. Otherwise, get creative with some almond meal and lemon or orange juice; or cocoa powder and choc-chips. There are more possibilities than there are pages in Hank’s Constitutional Law.
Microwave Cookies
Kind of like mug cakes, but not (funny that). Awesome for when that packet of Arnott’s Nice biscuits just isn’t cutting it for you.
Quick Pastry Scrolls
This is a fairly fuss-free dessert idea. This recipe is for cinnamon ones, but Nutella is a favourite in our house too! It’s all the dessert-y happiness without the frustration of making a dough-based scroll. This recipe very much depends on how much you need so add extra as you see fit. It’s also very versatile and requires very little skill.
Ingredients:
Pre-made pastry (puff or shortcrust – it’s your choice!)
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons melted butter
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Cut Pastry into strips. Try to make them at least 5cm or so wide. Mix together cinnamon, brown sugar and butter. Spread the mixture along the strips, but leave about half a centimetre free along a long edge. This free section then needs be folded back on the mixture to help stop your cinnamonny happiness from melting out (especially if you use shortcrust). Then, roll the strips up into little scrolls, so that the folded-over edge sits on one side, rather than being folded into the middle. Depending on the length of the strip, you may want to cut it in half. Again, it’s completely up to you. Bake until pastry is browned. Be warned: the cinnamon mixture will be hot! You can also make little pastry parcels if you’d prefer.
Scones
When we were kids, Mum used to set us up with a bowl of flour and make us rub in butter so we could have scones for afternoon tea. As much as this repetitive hand movement would help strengthen our law student hands for exams, there’s a quicker and easier way to make scones that would please the queen, and it only needs three ingredients.
Bonus fact: if you don’t have a hand mixer and don’t want to whisk cream, you can thicken cream in a jar. Half-fill a jar with cream and put the lid on. Shake it. It will go bubbly but will eventually thicken. It won’t be as good as a hand beater but it’s better than runny cream!
Enjoyed this post? Sign up for the Survive Law weekly newsletter for more.