Whether you receive your first Bookish Bakes kit as a gift from a loved one or as a gift to treat yourself (hello, self love!), we want to make sure you’re getting the best experience possible.
The kit in your hand is your ticket to a new and exciting world. It will stretch your baking muscles and encourage you to try new bakes and techniques. But most importantly, it will provide you with pockets of joy and mindfulness in your busy, stressful life.
However, to make sure all these wonderful things happen for you when you open your box, there are a few… let’s call them guidelines you should be aware of.
Read on to find out how to get the most out of your Bookish Bakes experience.
Always read the recipe through first
All right, so this rule applies any time you’re baking or cooking from a recipe, but it’s an important one to follow so you have the best experience with your Bookish Bakes baking kit. You always want to know what you need and what steps you’ll be performing before you crack on.
If there’s a term or technique you’re unfamiliar with in the instructions, you can take the time to check our list of Common Baking Terms or look up a tutorial on YouTube. Or you might read through the ingredients or equipment list and realise you’re missing something and can go grab it before you’re halfway through baking and it’s too late.
In a Bookish Bakes baking kit, we provide you with all the dry ingredients you’ll need, perfectly measured, so that you can enjoy baking up the recipe right away. But if you forget to read the recipe through and accidentally do something wrong, we can’t guarantee the bake will turn out as pictured.
Read your recipe carefully first thing and you’ll be away to the races!
Weigh out any extra ingredients you need to add before starting
Otherwise known as mise en place. Which is a fancy way of saying “get everything you need prepped and ready before you start to save yourself time and stress.”
As I mentioned above, your Bookish Bakes kit will come with mostly everything you need: pre-measured dry ingredients, pre-cut parchment paper, and any fiddly extras like cookie cutters or piping bags and nozzles.
However, you will usually need to add a few common pantry staples as well – things like butter, eggs, oil, or fresh fruit. Our recipe cards have ingredient measurements, so you can easily weigh or measure out what you need. Taking a few minutes to prepare your ingredients and line your baking trays or tins will save you from tearing apart the kitchen locating the measuring cup or spoons and then forgetting what step you’re on.
Save yourself a ton of stress and do like the French.
Preheat your oven
This is such an important step that I made it my first tip in our Beginners’ Baking Tips and Tricks Guide!
On a Bookish Bakes recipe card, preheating your oven to the required temperature is normally the very first step. Forgetting to preheat your oven can result in some pretty dire consequences.
If your batters sit out too long on the countertop waiting for the oven to preheat, they won’t bake up right. You’ll lose precious leavening power, temperatures will change, and this can all result in a difference in rise, texture, and flavour.
Always preheat your oven before beginning to bake to get the best results from your Bookish Bakes baking kit.
Eat your treat while reading the book that inspired it
A Bookish Bakes kit is more than a simple dump-and-bake box – it’s an immersive reading experience.
The concept of our kits relies on you reading the story alongside eating the bake. They are meant to be enjoyed together. On their own, baking and reading are both mindful and relaxing activities. There’s no question that enjoying either of these hobbies on their own will have a positive effect on your mental health.
But when paired together, they create this unique experience that can transport you inside the story. Every sense is activated through the baking and eating process to allow you to feel like you’re going on the adventure alongside the characters. Baking the treat inspired by the tale creates a stronger sense of atmosphere and a deeper connection to the story while you read.
If you truly want to experience the full gamut of what a Bookish Bakes kit can offer, we highly recommend you read the book while you enjoy the treat!
Join in with the community
Providing a safe and inclusive space for you to enjoy baking and reading is very important to us at Bookish Bakes.
Our monthly subscription, The Bookish Bakers, is a welcoming group full of kind people with similar interests. We are foodies, we are book dragons, we are hobby bakers, we are writers, knitters, movie fans, and quote collectors.
Together we support each other through life’s adventures and share our knowledge and expertise to help everyone succeed – whether that’s reading a new genre, mastering a new baking technique, or listening and helping someone through a struggle.
The Bookish Bakers reopens every month for a period of 5 days to welcome new members. You can find out more about our monthly subscriptions here.
For a taste of what the Bookish Bakers is like, you can join in the conversation and community over on Instagram, where you can attend our Live events, vote on what kits and books you’d like to see next, and have your voice heard.
Be consistent with your practice
Practice makes progress.
If you want to get better at baking or read more regularly, don’t wait too long in between sessions. You’ll lose momentum and feel like you’re starting back at square one.
Start slow, but don’t give up. Commit to baking twice a month or reading for 10 minutes every day. Little steps add up to huge growth.
Joining the Bookish Bakers monthly subscription is a fantastic way to ensure you don’t fall off the wagon. Every month you’ll receive a new recipe and new book on your doorstep to gently encourage you to make time for yourself, practice the skills you’ve gained, explore a new world, and reduce your stress and anxiety in a fun and immersive way. You’ll also have access to a lovely community who is with you every step of the way.
But also, please be kind to yourself, especially if you’re a beginner. You aren’t meant to know every technique, ingredient, or even what kind of books you like if you haven’t had a lot of experience with them.
Don’t rush your unique journey. Be consistent, happily plod away at it, enjoy it.
If you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to subscribe to the Bookish Bakes mailing list for biweekly thoughts on books, helpful baking tips, and ways to reduce your stress.