MOTHERS DAY GIFT – 5 GREAT BAKING SUBSCRIPTION BOX’S…

With Mothers Day next Sunday and most of us still in lockdown it’s a difficult time to think of something that your special Mum could enjoy at home. Well, if she loves baking then one of the following subscription boxes will be perfect for her. I have also included a family subscription in case Mum would prefer to bake with her little ones.

1.Bake Box BakeBox is a range of postal baking kits aimed at everyone that loves baking. They offer BakeBox ideally aimed at the more experienced baker. Little BakeBox is purely for the little ones that may need some assistance and Celebration BakeBox is a range of cakes designed specifically with special occasions in mind. They show you how easy it is to make an incredible bake with our full colour, easy to follow recipes, no matter your age or ability, from £18 per month.

2.The Great British Bake Off BoxThe Bake Off Box is a monthly subscription service that delivers recipes developed by The Great British Bake Off, direct to your door. Each box brings a new recipe challenge along with a beautifully designed recipe card, selected ingredients from British suppliers, and a bespoke piece of Bake Off equipment. They offer several subscription options from rolling monthly to pre-purchased bundles, starting from one month rolling for £19.99 or 3 month bundle for £59.97 and you can cancel at any time.

3.Bake a Day of It Box – Every box has two new recipes a month as well as a few items such as biscuit cutters, decorating equipment or special ingredients. The items will always be related to the recipes and each month’s box has a theme ! If you subscribe before the 1st of the month, you will receive your box through the post the following month. Subscription is £13 or you can buy a single box for £15, so a very reasonable price.

4.Cookie Crumbles Baking Kit Subscription – this is one for the whole family. The monthly baking kits are aimed at introducing kids to wholesome homemade food made from natural ingredients such as wholemeal flour, various seeds and dried fruit. With these baking its you’ll be baking tasty treats packed with goodness such as blueberry and vanilla muffins, gluten-free cinnamon brownies and even granola bars. They start from £8 per month.

5.My final choice is Bakedin – Subscription boxes from Bakedin have two completely unique subscription boxes, the baking club and the bread baking club. Each month, they deliver a unique baking kit with a recipe exclusively developed in-house and posted through your letterbox. There kits contain all the dry ingredients, an easy to follow recipe card and some handy extras like the baking paper. All their flour is local to them in Hampshire and they only use top notch Belgian chocolate. They have subscriptions to their Baking Club and their Bread Baking Club which start from £10.99 per month down to £7.50 for a 12 month subscription.

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TURMERIC WITH ORANGE & STAR ANISE TEA LOAF RECIPE…

I don’t know about you but once the temperature has dropped I start craving for more filling loaf cakes especially fruit ones and with all the different types of tea infusions available today it can change the taste easily.

I used Twinning’s Turmeric with Orange & Star Anise for this recipe as it has such a strong taste and I thought it would really compliment the fruit. I wasn’t wrong it was really tasty.

In the recipe I had put 300g of caster sugar but over the years I have made lots of fruit cakes for my Dad who was a diabetic and I just cut out the caster sugar and added a couple of tablespoons of Canderel or similar. It tastes just as nice.

Ingredients – Serves 12

4 Twinning’s Turmeric with Orange & Star Anise teabags, 400g dried fruit, 1 Orange, 1 Large Egg, 300g Caster Sugar (or 2 Tables Canderel), 400g self-raising flour, 2 tablespoons Orange Marmalade (Diabetic Sugar Free if preferred).

Method

Put your four teabags into a measuring jug and add 300ml of boiling water. Leave to brew for a few minutes then remove the tea bags. Put the dried fruit into a large mixing bowl and grate over the zest of the orange. Stir well. Pour over the dried fruit and leave to infuse for about four hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. Line a litre loaf tin with loaf tin liner. Whisk the egg and add the bowl of fruit and the sugar. Add the flour and squeeze in the juice of the orange.

Mix until you have a dough like consistency then spoon the mixture into your tin and bake for around 1 hour 10 minutes until cooked through after testing with a skewer to see if it comes out clean.

Pop two tablespoons of the orange marmalade into a bowl and pop into your microwave for 20 seconds then brush over the top of the cake.