I was soooo excited to receive the first-ever Great British Bake Off Box on the 6th of February! This subscription was a Christmas/birthday present from my Mum and Grandma and means I´ll now be receiving a treat at the start of the next few months which is amazing!
For those of you who haven´t heard, the Great British Bake Off has released the concept of the Bake Off Box, which is available for monthly subscription and contains the dry ingredients for a special recipe, as well as a bespoke piece of baking equipment! The first Bake Off Box was sent out this February and I was super-excited to be among the first to receive it!
I thought a lot of you might be interested in finding out more about the Bake Off Box content, the recipe and the equipment that comes with it, so I thought I would film the “experience” and write up a little review about it for you! So here we go!
*Just a quick disclaimer before we start: This post isn´t sponsored (I wish!) and I am not getting paid for anything I have said. It´s just my own personal opinion and experience.*
Check out the Unboxing and Baking Video here:
This Month´s Bake Off Box Content
For the first-ever Bake Off Box, I received a cake stand, as well as the ingredients and recipe to make the Signature Chocolate Cake we all know and love from the opening titles of every Great British Bake Off episode! A rich chocolate cake, smothered in chocolate ganache and topped with raspberries – the latter have caused a bit of an outrage over the past few years as a lot of people find there is an “annoying” gap on the cake where a raspberry is missing, haha!
The Cake Stand
The cake stand was this month´s piece of “bespoke equipment” included in the Bake Off Box. It is about 10cm high, 25cm in diameter and a light baby blue colour. It says “Great British Bake Off” on it which is nice and seems to be quite sturdy and easy to wash. I´m not quite sure of the material but it is plastic-y (not in a cheap way though) and fairly light-weight. At first I was a bit unsure about the colour and whether it would go with things, but it is definitely growing on me and the Signature Chocolate Cake looked good on it!
The Signature Chocolate Cake Ingredients
This Bake Off Box came with 4 sachets of dry ingredients for the recipe, containing flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar and cocoa powder for the cake and dark chocolate for the ganache. The ingredients not included that you had to buy yourself were milk, eggs, vegetable oil, salt, a little butter, double cream and fresh raspberries. I will mention the cost of the box and ingredients a little later in this post so bear with me.
The Recipe
The recipe card I received with the Bake Off Box was really nicely made and took the shape of a little booklet containing a step-by-step picture guide to making the chocolate cake. The recipe was very easy to follow (suitable for beginners) and did not take a lot time to make, especially as the dry ingredients had already been weighed out for you!
I have posted the recipe for the Bake Off Signature Chocolate Cake here on my blog for you, so make sure to check it out!
Pros and Cons of February´s Bake Off Box
Okay, so you might be wondering what I think of this first-ever Bake Off Box. It´s obviously overwhelmingly positive, so let´s just get a few of the cons out of the way first.
Cons/Ways the Bake Off Box could be improved
One bit of unclarity I faced when making the cake, was what type of tin I should use. In the end, I opted for 20cm round sandwich tins, as I had two of those in the house. However, I think in hindsight, they were a bit too shallow and a deeper tin (like this one) would have been better to ensure an even rise of the cake. I only have one of those though, and I am sure others might be limited by a lack of multiple types of a certain baking tin, too. I think at least the next box (March, Mini Banana and Walnut loaves), they include a special baking tin/tray as the piece of baking equipment as not many will have a mini loaf baking tin.
One thing (I know this is very lazy of me) I think they could have also included would have been two round circles of baking paper to line the tins. You can buy them in Lakeland and isn´t something I´d normally “waste” my money on, but I think it would have been a nice little addition to the box.
Pros/Why I´d recommend it!
Just the excitement of receiving the Bake Off Box was enough this month – I have been looking forward to it for ages! The packaging was cute and the recipe card well made, I really love the cake stand and thoroughly enjoyed making – and eating! – the cake. My friends and flatmate I shared it with loved it, too, so that´s always a good sign!
What I love most about the Bake Off Box is the idea to send it to someone as a present each month! I probably would not have treated myself to it, so I was overjoyed when my Mum and Grandma gave me a few months-worth of the subscription for my Christmas/Birthday. Now, even though I need to wait another 10 months until the next one, I still get a present every month from them 😊. All my baking friends are jealous, haha, and I am already excited for the next one!
Another thing I think was really good about the box, was that you were given the exact quantities of each of the dry ingredients you were given, meaning you can make it again another time! I was worried that all the dry ingredients may come mixed together, so that you have no idea how much you have of each (similar to a box of cake mix from the supermarket) and the recipe remains a “secret”. But that wasn´t the case here and was something I really appreciated! I have typed up the recipe for you in a separate post which you can find here!
Cost of the Bake Off Box and Where to Get It
The Bake Off Box is available from their website here and costs about 20£/month. That covers the ingredients, equipment and packaging/postage. You will also have to bear in mind that you might have to buy some additional ingredients. Some things you might already have in the house (salt, vegetable oil, etc.) but I´d say the overall additional cost for ingredients this month is somewhere between £5-10, depending on what you´ve already got and the price of fresh raspberries where you are.
I hope you enjoyed this post, and it has given you a little insight into the first month of the Bake Off Box subscription! Stay tuned for these posts at the start of the next few months now! If you have any other questions in the meantime, just leave a comment under this post!
