Bake Off Box #7 | Review | August 2021

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It´s time for Bake Off Box Number 7 and this month’s box came with the dry ingredients, equipment and recipe for Passion Fruit Éclairs with Meringue Kisses! Yes, they tasted as good as they sound!

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 Video here:

This Month´s Bake Off Box Content

In the August Bake Off Box, I received the ingredients to make 10 Passion Fruit Éclairs with Meringue Kisses.

The Bake Off Box Baking Equipment

The August Bake Off Box’s required A LOT of piping! Hence, the box arrived with 4 piping bags and 3 piping nozzles. The first is a plain round nozzle, that is about 1cm in diameter and was used for piping the éclairs. While a round nozzle will help the éclairs keep their shape better, you could do without it and just cut the piping bag so that the opening is 1cm in diameter. The second nozzle was a small open star nozzle, which was great for piping the little meringue kisses. Finally, the box also included a filling nozzle, which has a long, thin, and pointy end which you can insert into your baked good and squeeze the filling straight into the centre.

As per usual (I just have too much baking stuff!) I do have nozzles, but they are the kind of thing I tend to lose easily (and then they re-appear when you’re not looking for them) so it’s always good to have spare! Also, they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes so I probably don’t yet have the exact same ones. Finally, I do think this filling nozzle is a bit better than the one I already have as it is a bit larger – i.e. I can put more filling into my bakes faster! YAY!

The Passion Fruit Éclair Ingredients

This Bake Off Box did not come with many dry ingredients. The box contained enough flour and caster sugar for the recipe, and a jar of passion fruit curd. Passion fruit curd however, is quite a fancy ingredient and I am not entirely sure where I could buy it if I wanted to make these again. I’m assuming more expensive supermarkets like Waitrose or M&S might have it, but it is definitely something I will be looking out for now in future! Alternatively, you can buy passion fruit in most UK supermarkets so I could always make my own.

This did mean though that you had to provide a few fresh ingredients yourself, including eggs, full-fat milk, butter, double cream and optional fresh mint leaves.

I think that it was due to the lack of dry ingredients this month, that they included an additional “Bonus Ingredient” – Dark Chocolate Drops. They recommend using them for a separate recipe for Chocolate Choux Buns which you can download from their website. Follow the link here for the recipe card. They are basically profiteroles and are filled with whipped cream – so I probably won’t be making them… Instead, I would recommend filling them with vanilla crème pâtissière – check out my recipe for Choux Buns filled with Vanilla Crème Pâtissière (Religieuses).

The Recipe

I loved this recipe! It was technically challenging AND tasted good – what more can a girl ask for?! 😉 It was certainly not a walk in the park and took me about 4-5 hours to complete, but I was very happy with the way my Passion Fruit Éclairs turned out in the end.

Choux pastry, meringue and caramel are all things I wouldn’t usually bake so this was a great excuse for me to practice those skills again – especially the caramel! When you see how many caramels are burnt on the Great British Bake Off each year it looks like you can never get enough practice with that! I also can’t remember ever having something with passion fruit before, so a great thing the Bake Off Box has introduced me to.

The recipe was well explained though, and I have included some more of my own tips and tricks in the video and the recipe post. There were a few alterations to the quantities that I would recommend making, but I have adapted everything in my recipe post here: Passion Fruit Éclairs with Meringue Kisses | Bake Off Box #7.

Pros and Cons of June´s Bake Off Box

Cons

No complaints this month! The box arrived pretty much in time, I loved the recipe, loved the final product and my equipment!

Pros

As I have mentioned above, I really liked this month’s Bake Off Box! The recipe was technically challenging, pushed my baking skills and introduced me to a really excellent new flavour combination! I cannot believe how much I liked that passion fruit curd! You can find the recipe here.

In addition, I liked this month’s piece of equipment. Couldn’t have done without it this month, and (spare) nozzles and different sizes of nozzles is always a good thing to have!

Finally, I think it was good that the box came with the additional “bonus ingredient”, as this upped the value of the box (perhaps to compensate for the lack of other dry ingredients). Although you can obviously use it for whatever you like, I think it’s great that they are starting to suggest and provide additional recipes that you can do to hone your baking skills. For example this month, the recommended additional recipe (find it here) encourages you to make choux pastry again.

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, you needed quite a few additional ingredients: full-fat milk, butter, large eggs, double cream and I also bought some fresh mint. This probably meant I spent an additional £5-7 on ingredients this month.

I hope you enjoyed this post about the content of the seventh 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!

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