I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of the brand new Great British Bake Off book to review during National Baking week (15th – 21st October). I have to be honest I haven’t really watched the series but from all the tweets and Facebook comments referring to it, I felt I got the gist of the kinds of baked goods to expect. The Great British Bake off; Learn to Bake; 80 Easy Recipes For All The Family is written by Linda Collister and Mary Berry who is one of the judges from the BBC’s series GBB.
I was pleasantly surprised when the book arrived. It took me a couple of days to decide on which items Princess and I would put to the test first and the fact that most of the recipes used everyday store cupboard ingredients made the decision even more agonising as I couldn’t use lack of a key food as an excuse to help narrow down the playing field.
In the end we decided for the Zebra cake because it looked impressive and Princess said we had to. We also made sausage rolls and had them for tea one day after work as the recipe was super easy to follow and it seemed like an indulgent thing to do in the middle of the week for a time strapped family such as ourselves!
The majority of the recipes are very simple to follow and great for doing with children. Princess is only four and had no problems pitching in, she even piped the lines for the zebra cake into the cake tins once I’d laid out the first line as a guide for her! It’s half term in a couple of weeks and there’s definitely loads of recipes to keep the family busy during the term break. I don’t have the time off work but I’ll be giving the book to the child minder so her and the kids can have some fun!
For the serious bakers, there are a few recipes that will test your skills so you won’t feel left out! The book is due out on October 25th 2012 and is sure to become a well thumbed collection to any kitchen collection.
As mentioned at the start of the post, I was kindly sent a copy of the book for the purpose of this review.
