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.
This is really interesting to hear what everyone has to say and good for you for writing what you think in a review. I’m amazed anyone would ever promote something they haven’t actually seen – I always ignore those requests, I did do a review of the 1st issue a while back though and I quite liked it – mostly because it had a simple layout and no advertising and I like silicone bakeware. However, I didn’t know at the time that they would be charging £4.99 a copy – that’s outrageous.
@Joanne, do you know how I can contact the Guardian Money Page?
on day 91…and closer to resolution…trying to locate email addresses for Phil Soar – Chairman of Dagostini, Eaglemoss and participant with Database Factory.
Kind regards
Claire
Well, I did review it but wouldn’t say I raved about it, just said what was in it. I didn’t actually mind the layout, but do agree that it is old fashioned compared to some of the other magazines on the shelves. It’s NOT something I would subscribe to, I prefer to spend my money on decent bakeware – but there are quite a few people out there that do collect these magazine things, not sure why though!
There was a complaint from someone in my comments section about the cupcake cases being damaged – and I can see why – they were rather flimsy.
I was offered to do a giveaway of the first few instalments but I declined as it wasn’t really for me after seeing the first one.
I think the lesson I’ve learned from receiving the Baked and Delicious mag and probably the Cadbury’s Cocoa House post is that I’ve decided not to preview anything I’ve not seen. Otherwise you’re just reproducing what the PR has given you and it might not be what you’d say if you’d experienced the venue/product!
Would you go and spend £50 on a crappy book with a few ‘half baked’ recipes in and then go to pound shop to buy the tins? Think about the lovely books you could buy after a few months of not subsribing and the lovely bakeware you could get! Or why pay when the internet is full of things to make! Post New Year it is always a wonder to see what Deagostini and like can come up with for part works!
How right you are!!