Friday Review: The Great British Bake Off recipe book

Ok so I'm now having a few technical difficulities with the pictures in this post *grumble*. I'll fix it later!

As series 3 of The Great British Bake Off (TGBBO) started this week, the recipe book that accompanied series 2 of the show seemed like the perfect choice for this week’s review. So this week we have Linda Collister’s The Great British Bake Off, How to Bake the Perfect Victoria Sponge and Other Baking Secrets.Wow what a mouthful!



Available from: Amazon.co.uk

Nice clear layout and the top tips are well intergrated

So what do I like about it?
Well for starters the range of recipes is amazing; every chapter starts with an “easy introduction” recipe. For example the cake chapter starts with a Victoria Sponge, bread starts with a simple white loaf and so on. The recipes then go on to include the “technical challenges” from the show, these are Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry’s own recipes which are aimed at the more experienced baker. There are also the “Best of the Bake Off” recipes, these were invented by the contestants of the show and finally there are lots of normal recipes. These normal recipes also feature little icons which indicate if it's a good recipe for children to try, or good for celebrations etc. Basically no matter what you want to make you’ll find it in here or something pretty close to it. And as an added bonus there is a secret code hidden in the book which gives you access to the recipes cooked in the series finale. 

The chapters are really well organised and are they are all divided by type (cakes, bread, savoury pastry etc.), the general layout is fantastic, quite a lot of the recipes are accompanied by good clear photographs and everything is laid out in a clear manner. The layout really comes into its own when you consider the technical challenge recipes and the introduction recipes though; these pages feature good clear images of every step of the recipe with extremely detailed instructions. This layout makes these recipes a lot less daunting for the inexperienced.

 

Layout used for the
introduction and technical challenge recipes

In addition to all of this the start of each chapter features several pages of advice on how to avoid common pitfalls, what sort of equipment you need and just general good advice. And scattered throughout the book are lots of tips (including many from Paul and Mary) and tricks to make your baking easier and ensure success.

And what don’t I like?
To be honest, nothing. I really love this book and can’t find any real faults with it. The layout is splendid, the photography is superb and it’s full of excellent recipes for every skill level.  Everything is well written and there are lots of handy hints and advice scattered throughout the book. I suppose some readers might find the photographs of the contestants a little annoying, but since this book features their own recipes and is designed to accompany the TV series I think it makes perfect sense to have picture of the contestants!

So final rating? 5/5
This book is fantastic, it’s full of challenging recipes for the experienced baker and easy ones for beginners. There is so much practical advice in here I think success is pretty much guaranteed with every recipe no matter what your personal skill level! I really feel that this is one of the best recipe books available at the moment and is perfect to give someone if they are just getting into baking. Well worth the money! Based on how good this book is I am looking forward to getting the series 3 book!

Friday Review: Cupcakes for Princesses

I thought it was about time I wrote a book review, if only to give you all a break from my obsession with Lakeland! The first book up for review is Cupcakes for Princesses by Love Food.

Available from: Amazon.co.uk

So what do I like?
I love the concept of the book; the book is sold as “the perfect cookbook for every little princess”. I love that, it’s really cute and the princess theme is continued throughout. The chapters are given titles like “party princess” and “pretty princess cupcakes” which is cute and there are some adorable photographs of little girls dressed as princesses. I love all that stuff, it’s very cute and most of the book is pink which matches the theme! There are also some lovely extras at the back, two templates for party name plates (a crown and a star) and some stencils for use when dusting icing sugar onto cakes and biscuits (crown, heart, flower and star). I will admit that these are one of the major reasons I brought this book!

Neat layout and cute photographs

Despite being called “Cupcakes for Princesses” there is a really nice variety of recipes, there are plenty of biscuit recipes and lots of other nice little things. There is even a recipe for mini-meringues! I haven’t tried any of the recipes in here yet but reading through them I can see that the instructions are clear and easy to follow.  The layout of the recipe pages is neat and organised, with every recipe page including at least one photograph of the finished product.

And what don’t I like?
This will seem strange given my praise in the previous paragraph but I don’t like the recipes much. I should rephrase that, I don’t like the cupcake recipes. With the exception of two recipes (warm strawberry cupcakes and lemon meringue cupcakes) all the cupcake recipes are for plain vanilla cakes which are just decorated differently! And on four occasions the decoration is just a vanilla butter cream with some sweets thrown on top! However for me the most annoying “recipe” are the “princess doughnuts”, why? Because this recipe basically tells you to make a simple water icing, dye it pink and then spoon it onto shop brought doughnuts! That is not a recipe in my mind.

Really not a fan of this font

I’m also not a huge fan of the font used throughout the book, it’s readable but I just prefer seeing something simple like Times New Roman or Arial used in publications.

So final verdict and score? I’ll give the book a 3/5
This is an ok book to give a child as their first cookbook, but I wouldn’t recommend it for girls above age 8 or 9. While I happen to find it cute, older children and adults will probably find the princess theme a little childish and I think young girls might get bored with some of the recipes on offer quite quickly.  The layout is generally ok, and the instructions are clear and concise which is good. But while there is some variety amongst the recipes I am really not happy with the standard of some of them.