Bake Off Box #9 | October 2021 | Review

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It´s time for Bake Off Box Number 9 and this month’s box came with the dry ingredients, equipment, and recipe for a Focaccia with Olives, Garlic and Rosemary! The Focaccia tasted very nice indeed, however, I was not overly impressed with this month’s Bake Off Box… You can find out why below…

For those of you who haven´t heard of it before, 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 & Baking Video here:

This Month´s Bake Off Box Content

In the October Bake Off Box, I received the ingredients to make a large Focaccia bread flavoured with olives, confit garlic, fresh rosemary and fresh sea salt.

The Bake Off Box Baking Equipment

The October Bake Off Box piece of equipment was extremely disappointing. The box came with a set of 5 plastic measuring spoons, which I was annoyed about for multiple reasons. The first is that plastic measuring spoons are available for about 1 pound in every British supermarket, and I’d bet by bottom dollar that every person who bakes in this country already owns a set of measuring spoons!

Even if you are new to baking and have only been doing so because of or since the release of the Bake Off Box, you have needed measuring spoons so often already for previous recipes, that people might have already bought them! But not only did I think this was a bit of a rip-off when you think that the box costs £20, the worst thing is that all the pictures released in the lead-up to the box being sent out, show the Focaccia bread being baked in a Bake Off Box-coloured traybake tin.

This tin is available to purchase from the Bake Off Box website, but I definitely thought it should have been included in the box. That would definitely have been a better piece of equipment to receive and more worth the money. So instead, when making this recipe, I used my usual go-to Brownie traybake tin to bake the Focaccia in. I can thoroughly recommend this tin as I have been using it for years, so if you are interested in buying one you can find it here.

The Focaccia with Olives, Garlic & Rosemary Ingredients

This was another point that added to my frustration about the piece of equipment I received in this month’s box. I’m not saying that it was super cheap for the Bake Off Box to produce, but you can buy measuring spoons for a pound – there’s no need for ones from the Box! So the fact that the ingredients were not something I would regard as being particularly expensive, I was even more cheesed off that I hadn’t received a traybake tin instead!

This month’s box came with 500g bread flour with a tbsp of caster sugar mixed into it, a 7g sachet of yeast, a tiny box with 15g of flaked sea salt and the olives. I obviously know and understand that bread making doesn’t require too many ingredients, but all in all these ingredients would probably not cost more than £3-5 to buy yourself -and that would be with loads of salt and olives left over! You then also had to then provide garlic, rosemary and olive oil yourself, and while the first two are fairly cheap, extra-virgin olive oil is not! You need quite a lot in this recipe, 180ml plus extra for greasing, so I feel like the box could have at least included a small bottle of olive oil!

The Recipe

The recipe was probably the best thing about this box. I love baking bread, and Focaccia bread is a go-to choice in the summer when we have a barbecue! I actually have two Focaccia recipes on my blog already, so make sure to check out my Rosemary Focaccia and Tomato and Mozzarella Focaccia recipes as well!

But I really enjoyed the flavour combination and the idea of adding confit garlic to the bread, plus the fact that the dough did not require any kneading. You needed some patience with this recipe due to the proving time in between folds, however, the hands-on time for making this recipe was really minimal! So all in all a nice little recipe to make a good-tasting bread. However, this was definitely not enough to make up for the disappointment of the equipment and ingredients I mentioned above.

Pros and Cons of October´s Bake Off Box

Cons

I was not impressed with the October Bake Off Box. As explained above, I do not think that the box was value for money this month! I paid £20 for something that would have cost me under £10 to buy myself. I actually find it a bit outrageous that the equipment this month was just a set of measuring spoons I am sure everyone already owns, and cost you no more than a pound! Especially seeing as there weren’t many ingredients provided earlier, I definitely think this month’s box was a bit of a rip-off and should have included a traybake baking tray and/or some extra-virgin olive oil!

Pros

The only positive thing I can say about this month’s Bake Off Box, is that at least the recipe was good. It was easy to follow and used a method that didn’t require any kneading, and the end result tasted really nice. You can find the recipe here. However, in my opinion it does not make up for this month’s cons!

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 to provide fresh rosemary, garlic and extra-virgin olive oil yourself, which probably cost between £5-7 depending on the quality/brand of olive oil you buy. Every month so far I have been impressed with and enjoyed the box – this month it was definitely not worth the money!

I hope you enjoyed this post about the content of the 9^th 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!

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