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.
Interesting review this… I normally used to flip between Olive, Delicious and Good Food when I was in the UK, but only the odd issue… I ended up collecting a year’s worth of magazines, and they were all seasonal, so I think I did well. I brought them all to Canada with me too. But I started subscribing to Canadian Living here, and I think its a really good one, as far as recipes and food styling are concerned. Plus its a half lifestyle magazine too, so I satisfy my mag craving without having to buy something like Glamour.
You don’t hesitate to call a spade a spade though, do you? One of the reasons I come back to your blog 🙂
The baking revival has been going for a fair while now and the bottom feeders are now all getting in on the act; see the various reviews on I Heart Cupcakes and American Cupcake in London about the crap cakes being produced by the bandwagon jumpers.
I’d like all the food magazines to recognise that some people who were beginners a few years ago, are now probably ready to tackle some more challenging recipes. It feels like almost every other recipe book or magazine out there has the word ‘easy’ in it.
Apparently it’s a partwork so there are a finite number of issues and it would take something like £400 to collect them all! Honestly people must be mad. If I had £400 to spend on baking-related stuff I’d buy a couple of (decent) books from Amazon and have a Lakeland shopping spree.
Well precisely…
I love a trouncing once in a while too. Good for you Sarah. Huge fan of Kitchen Butterfly.
Kitchen Butterfly rocks!
I know someone who subscribed to this and keeps raving about it. I wasn’t convinced having only seen it in the newsagent’s as you say it looked cheap and flimsy. Great interesting post!
Thank you!