Which of these Great British Bake-off cookbooks should I buy?

November 29, 2018 8:18 AM

My sister and I are obsessed with the Great British Bake-Off show, so for a Christmas gift I thought it would be fun to get her a cookbook that includes actual step-by-step recipes for some of the challenges from the show. However, I looked up the cookbooks related to the show, and there are soooo many different ones to choose from - see link: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=british+baking+show+book For anyone familiar with this show and these books, can you recommend the best one for beginner bakers who want to try some of the baking challenges from the show? I'm looking for step-by-step easy instructions, and I'm not sure how each of these books differ.
posted by koolaidnovel to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

You want this one for beginning bakers!
posted by DarlingBri at 8:25 AM on November 29, 2018

You might want to check out the responses to this nearly identical question from a month ago.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:32 AM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Nothing by Mary Berry! My baking club all agree that her recipes are nice but needlessly complicated and fiddley and you have to get them just right. I'm generally a good baker but her recipes always fail on my first attempt.
posted by kadia_a at 2:11 PM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here are all of the recipes from all of the shows. 22 pages of them.
posted by tzikeh at 7:58 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

To not abuse the edit window:

Here's a better source; it turns out the one above doesn't have all the recipes. But this one should.
posted by tzikeh at 8:05 PM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

We have GBBO: The Big Book of Baking and enjoy it. My partner does most of the baking but the things they’ve made so far have come out well on the first try and there seems to be a good variety. The recipes are straight forward and easy to follow and are from the show. Some of the ingredients can be a little tricky if you’re not in the UK but nothing crazy, there are usually easy substitutions.
posted by notheotherone at 8:22 PM on November 29, 2018

My friend sent me Paul Hollywood's Pies and Puds and I've made a couple of things out of it, though a bunch of them are out of my league at this juncture. I like it mainly for the title, which is fun to say. "Piiiiiiiiiiiiiies 'n' puds..."
posted by Don Pepino at 7:48 AM on November 30, 2018

the 2016 edition (and a few other years) are currently $2 on Kindle.

Not the most giftable format, but I find Kindle cookbooks surprisingly useful.
posted by roger ackroyd at 4:25 PM on November 30, 2018