Part work, Baked and Delicious magazine has been a big hit on Facebook with 14,000 people who “like” it, several thousand of whom declared their love before copies were on sale.
The first issue costs 99p, the second £2.99 and subsequent issues are £4.99. It claims to be “packed with international classics and traditional favourites” and that it “brings the very best of baking to today’s cooks.” As a further sweetener, each issue comes with a piece of colourful silicone bakeware. Subscribers also get “free” gifts such as electronic kitchen scales, cake tins, cake slices and the all important binder.
I’ve been amazed how many people have raved about this magazine in other blog reviews, to the point I’m wondering if they haven’t given it much thought or feel uncomfortable calling it a dud.
My Baked and Delicious Magazine REVIEW
We call spades spades here. My impression after reviewing issue one of Baked and Delicious was that it is:
- Flimsy at fewer than 30 pages per issue
- Cheap with pound shop quality bakeware gifts
- Overpriced for such a short magazine even bearing in mind the “free” gift
- Dated with 1980s yellow tinged photography
- Dreary with graphics that look like they were created in MS Word
- Unsophisticated with uninspiring food styling
- Badly edited with inconsistent layout and typos
On the plus side, the Gateaux St Honore recipe was the most useful but you’d do better to spend your cash on some generic baking books instead of doggedly committing to this week after week. For around £7.99 you can easily pick up little hardback baking books in the supermarket and discount book stores. You can add to your bakeware collection as necessary.
(For a highly informative post on the pros and cons of silicone bakeware, check out my friend Ozoz Kitchen Butterfly’s excellent post here)
Baked and Delicious has been out a while now but new subscribers get to buy back copies. Sixty issues are planned. If you want to back out, I’m informed you can cancel subscriptions at any time.
I’ve seen these magazines around in the shops and wondered who the heck buys them, and to he honest got. Bit annoyed that a company would produce such crap that will sooner than later end up in the landfill. They don’t look very good quality, and have never seen such a gimmicky magazine before in North America, but it seems as though they are a bit more popular her judging from the other collectable w/free gift magazines I regularly see. Thanks for publishing your review. It will be interesting to see if all 60 issues ever actually make I on the shelves…
Those binders are definitely bulky landfill..,
I was weary about it after I did some digging and found it’s published by a company that makes magazines about model trains and planes (so I didn’t ask for a copy to review).
I liked silicone bakeware when I was learning how to bake but I prefer the old fashioned metal stuff now.
I had read lots about this as well, Alltel reviews pretty glowing as you mentioned. But my initial thoughts were that it was all a bit of a gimmick-glad my instinct proved correct! As you say, all you really need is a few classic, good baking books, a few key ingredients, a couple of essential kitchen gadgets, enthusiasm and a couple of willing tasters!
It’s horridly gimmicky, just sucks people in to subscribe.
I always think the magazines are for those who don’t know better. There’s not a lot of people that do bake at home. There’s not a lot of people that own a cake tin, let alone of the silicone kind!
I hope that some people buy an Issue or 3, and then start exploring outside the magazine – and it’ll start a new world of bakers.
PS – I actually bought silicon cases for a pound, and they’re flimsier than the ones I own but do actually work, even months later! They matched the look I was going for, I thought it was quite a nice thing to bake some birthday cupcakes in, that way they could reuse the wrappers 😉
The silicone wrappers look quite cute but I can’t be bothered cleaning them…
I never buy things like this magazine…they always seem something of a rip-off, hooking people in with a low price to start with & then inflating it hugely. I did stand behind some ladies buying one in Smiths the other day and their conversation spoke volumes…”I haven’t made anything out of them yet, but you get a free gift every time!” Clever marketing….very interesting post, thanks x
Yeah, I think you’ve nailed it…