Bake Off Box #4 | May 2021 | Review

This is the fourth month of the Bake Off Box and this month’s recipe was my favourite so far!

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!

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 review each month for you!

*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

In the May Bake Off Box, I received the ingredients to make a Chocolate and Hazelnut Babka and a 2lb loaf tin to bake it in!

The Bake Off Box Loaf Tin

May’s piece of “bespoke baking equipment” was a 2lb loaf tin in which to bake this month’s Babka. The tin is the classic light blue colour of the Bake Off Box and it seems a very robust, sturdy cake tin. I will be honest, I was glad it wasn’t a silicone tin like in the 2^nd Bake Off Box, as I find silicone moulds a pain to bake with and to clean. While this loaf tin is certainly very handy for baking the babka and would be an excellent addition to a new collection of baking equipment for a newbie baker, but speaking as a slightly more seasoned – dare I say advanced – baker, I obviously already own a 2lb loaf tin. Nonetheless, the other tin I have isn’t actually the best of qualities so this may actually be a perfect replacement for it!

The Chocolate and Hazelnut Babka Ingredients

This Bake Off Box came with 4 sachets of dry ingredients for the recipe, one with caster sugar, one with flour, one with cocoa powder and one with dark chocolate. In addition, the box contained a sachet of fast-action dried yeast and 50g of blanched hazelnuts. I find hazelnuts fairly difficult to come by in the UK and they can often be rather expensive (although I have recently discovered them at Lidl!), so this was an excellent ingredient for the Bake Off Box to provide you with!

The fresh ingredients you had to supply yourself this month were eggs, butter, and a little milk. All fairly inexpensive and ingredients I usually already have in the house!

The Recipe

I absolutely LOVED this month’s recipe for the Chocolate and Hazelnut Babka! This was a technical challenge set by Paul on the 2020 Great British Bake Off and I have been very keen to try it! It’s absolutely delicious – the chocolate filling is stunning and the change in texture with the addition of the chopped hazelnuts is amazing! I loved, loved, LOVED it and I will definitely making it again! It is basically a more chocolatey version of the German Nusszopf recipe on my blog (plaited loaf with a nut filling) which is one of my Dad’s favourites, so I cannot wait to make this babka for him to try!

Check out the recipe post for the Chocolate and Hazelnut Babka here!

Pros and Cons of April´s Bake Off Box

Cons

As I mentioned before, for a more seasoned baker, this month’s special piece of baking equipment maybe wasn’t as useful as it may be to new bakers. However, I will say that it can never do any harm to have two loaf tins, eh?! That means that next time I can make two chocolate and hazelnut babka’s at once!

Pros

Besides the general things I have mentioned in previous months, for example that you are given the exact quantities of the ingredients you are given so that you can make the recipe again, I LOVED the recipe in May’s Bake Off Box!

This month’s recipe was a little more challenging and time-consuming to do, which is exactly the kind of bake I enjoy! I love baking bread (probably my favourite thing to make) so I was delighted that this recipe required making some dough and kneading! Enriched doughs can always be particularly difficult to master so I was glad to be able to make that again! Also, as it is my mission to attempt all technical challenge bakes ever set on Bake Off, this recipe was perfect as it meant I could tick another technical off of said list!

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. This month, however, it was very basic ingredients that you had to add and most people probably have these at home anyway (eggs, butter, milk)! In total, the cost for the extra ingredients this month wouldn’t have been more than £2-3.

I hope you enjoyed this post about the content of the fourth Bake Off Box! Make sure to check out my previous Bake Off Box posts, and stay tuned for these posts at the start of the next few months! If you have any other questions in the meantime, just leave a comment under this post!

Previous Bake Off Boxes

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