With the Christmas season fast approaching, I think we are all busy making our list of gifts for loved ones. It isn’t always easy though to find the perfect gift for everyone. Especially those you’ve been gifting to for years whom you might feel you’ve given every possible gift to already!
Well, the best gifts, as they say, are homemade. But before you baulk at the idea — no time, no idea, terrible baker — I’m here to tell you that help is at hand!
I first tried out Bakestarters early in the year with their kit for Pineapple Tarts. I’d made pineapple tarts before and I appreciated how the kit made things a lot simpler for me with all ingredients pre-measured, packed, and delivered fresh to my doorstep ready to be used. Plus a tried and tested recipe that promised to be delicious. With all the prep work taken out of my hands, it was easy enough for me to invite the kids to participate in the process and we enjoyed making the pineapple tarts together — and eating them!
Since that time, I’ve tried out several other subscription kits from them and the results have always been satisfyingly yummy.
Bakestarters has now launched their Christmas 2018 collection to help you to give those that you love tasty treats from your kitchen (and labour of love!) with minimal fuss.
Up to 7 December 2018, you can pre-order baking kits for Christmas goodies such as Gingerbread Cookies or a Chocolate Mint Yule Log and have everything you need to make these treats and impress friends and family.
I got to opportunity to test one of these kits out when I was provided with the kit for Bakestarters’ Dark Chocolate Earl Grey Babka. (Incidentally, this kit is called “Last Christmas I Gave You My Babka” which always makes me laugh when I see it!) I must admit I was a bit daunted when the kit first arrived. I am a novice baker and I don’t make bread. Maybe just pizza dough if that counts!
Here I appreciated having the tutorial video that you can find with every Bakestarters kit. It shows you step by step what you are supposed to do and, most importantly for people like me, what it’s supposed to look like. Armed with these, I plunged ahead.
This kit actually requires quite a bit of time as there is a need to proof the dough twice. Once when the dough is formed, and once after you form the babka wreaths. As such I had to set aside a good afternoon to do this. Fortunately the ingredients were all measured and ready to go or I’ll imagine it would take me even longer!
I’ll be honest and say that I did not find this easy. This is tagged at an intermediate level so I should have expected that! My dough turned out stickier than I had anticipated and that made it a bit difficult for me to work with. On hindsight, and on studying the video more carefully, I think I might not have kneaded the dough properly till it reached the stage where it passed the window pane test. But the good news was that thanks to this kit, I managed to complete what I didn’t think was possible! I felt such a sense of accomplishment on seeing my completed babka wreaths. Yes, they are a little messy and I totally forgot my egg wash (oops) but I think they are authentically rustic, no?
Best part is that they also tasted delicious. The earl grey chocolate flavour was very interesting and the babka bread was very moist and soft. I couldn’t believe I made it myself.
The Bakestarters Christmas 2018 Collection is available for pre-order on their website at: https://bakestarters.com/collections/christmas-collection18 and orders close on 7 December 2018. Kits to be delivered between 11 December and 22 December 2018.
P.S. In case you were wondering, a babka is a bread of Jewish origin that is usually swirled with chocolate or cinnamon. I have not come across it before so I learnt something new from this exercise!
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