Best baking subscriptions and kits for easy baking at home

Perfect if you are a novice baker, these baking kits guide you through the recipes with everything already weighed out to minimise the chance of anything going wrong. They’re also handy if you’re only an occasional baker, giving you the chance to try a wide variety of recipes without having to buy lots of ingredients you may only use once. They’re also handy gifts for keen bakers, or great activities to do with kids over the school holidays.

When ordering a baking subscription, consider what else you might need to bake your perfect sweet treat. Some kits include extra bits of equipment, but if not it’s easy to build your own collection. For intricate biscuit decoration, we’ve reviewed the best piping bags, for Victoria sandwiches and more we’ve tested the best cake tins, while a wire rack will help bakes cool evenly. Take a look at our round up of the best baking essentials once you’ve caught the baking bug.

Best baking subscriptions at a glance

Best value baking subscription: Bakedin, from £7.50
Best baking subscription for families: Honeywell Biscuit Co., from £14.99
Best sustainable baking subscription: BakesterBox, from £55
Best baking subscription with added tech: Bake Club, from £22.95
Best advanced baking subscription: Mon Dessert, from £19.95
Best trend-based baking subscription: Baker Boxx, from £10
Best baking subscription for cookies: If I Knew You Were Coming, from £19.99 for 3 months

Best baking subscriptions to buy in 2021

Bakedin

Best value baking subscription

Bakedin offers two unique subscription boxes featuring recipe kits developed in-house. The ‘baking club’ subscription includes sweet bakes such as cakes, muffins and cookies, while the ‘bread baking club’ is focused on either sweet or savoury breads. All recipes have the stamp of approval from Michel Roux OBE. To maintain surprise, each recipe is a secret until they land on your doormat. Subscriptions start from £7.50 per month for a 12 month pre-paid option, or you can pay on a more frequent basis (for a higher charge).

We tested three kits – cinnamon bun muffins, sticky toffee & ginger cake, and a walnut & spelt bread loaf. Each arrived in colourful letterbox packaging – green for the baking club and blue for the bread club. Inside were all of the pre-measured dry ingredients required to make the recipe, separated into plastic packets with numbered labelling. There was also a recipe card with clear step-by-step pictured instructions and a list of additional wet ingredients required (e.g butter, eggs and double cream). We liked how quick it was to mix ingredients and the numbered packets corresponded clearly to the recipe instructions, making identification easy. The boxes also came with handy extras such as piping bags, testing skewers and baking paper. All three kits were easy to make and the finished bakes closely resembled the pictures. For very little effort, it felt like we were still baking from scratch and were rewarded with a squidgy ginger cake, aromatic cinnamon muffins and a beautifully light spelt loaf.

Honeywell Biscuit Co.

Best baking subscription for families

Honeywell Biscuit Co. offers a range of beautifully decorated biscuits, as well as four different baking subscriptions: the Bread Bakers Club, Bakers Club, Young Bakers Club and family Bakers Club (combining one young bakers recipe and one Bakers Club recipe). These letterbox-friendly baking boxes come filled with pre-weighed dried ingredients and recipe cards highlighting the perishable ingredients to source yourself. The additional ingredients we needed were butter, eggs, milk and soft cheese.

Our Young Bakers Club recipe, designed for kids, was for a cookie dough pizza. The method was pitched for a child, with a few more steps than you’d have otherwise. Language-wise it was also carefully written and our six-year-old tester was able to understand it and take the lead. Once the giant cookie pizza was baked and cooled it was great fun to decorate with melted chocolate spread, dried strawberries, white chocolate shavings and caramel fudge. An impressive overall effect and generous in flavour.

Our Bakers Club baking kit for ginger & apricot creams was pitched for adults. The recipe was easy to follow, although the various stages of chilling and cooling meant that it took a little over an hour. The kit included a disposable piping bag for the soft cheese centres, making the finished product look uniform and professional. The white chocolate and crystallised ginger topping added to the taste and cute appearance.

BakesterBox

Best sustainable baking subscription

BakesterBox was launched in 2020 by a Le Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef. The bakes on offer fall into three categories: cookies and cakes, tarts and puddings, and bread and scones. Recipes include chocolate and walnut cookies, a Valrhona dark chocolate tart, cinnamon or cardamom buns, and much more. As well as the dry ingredients, each BakesterBox includes the mould or ramekin needed to bake your treats, plus a recipe card and card featuring some useful tips to get your bake just right.

Kits are available to buy individually and range in price from £14 up to £32. Alternatively, you can buy three- and six-month subscriptions, which cost £55 and £105 respectively. If you try a kit that’s an instant hit with your friends and family, you can order simple refill kits that just include the ingredients, without the additional equipment.

We tested the passion fruit fondant puddings kit. Housed in a neatly packed cardboard box are all of the dry ingredients, which, although they come in individual packets, are all made from NatureFlex™, a fully compostable film – extra points from us! All we needed to do was add the eggs and butter (these can be provided for £4 more). The four ramekins and pastry brush all came securely packaged too.

These passion fruit fondants are made in just nine steps. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, and the accompanying imagery makes this dish easy for even the most inexperienced baker. Scan the QR code on the instruction card to find an especially useful video tutorial. Additional storage information is also provided.

Our baked fondants were pure luxury! The passion fruit flavour was tropical, sweet and sour in equal measure, and the cake was soft with a delightfully crisp exterior. As suggested, we served ours with double cream, which made for the perfect pairing.

BakesterBox offers a variety of bakes ranging from the classic and traditional to bakes with a twist. High-quality ingredients and equipment, plus eco-friendly and fully recyclable packaging make this the perfect subscription for the environmentally conscious, inquisitive baker.

Baker Boxx

Best trend-based baking subscription

Whether you’re a savoury fan or you have a sweet tooth, Bakerboxx has you covered. These simple baking kits start at just £10 per month, which we think is great value for money. There are three subscriptions to choose from: the Bread Boxx, Trend Boxx or Family Boxx. The Bread Boxx features a different loaf every month and comes with everything you need to get your baking journey started. We tested the rosemary and focaccia loaf, which was bursting with herby flavour. Crispy and golden brown on the outside, while fluffy and chewy on the inside. The directions were easy to follow and simple enough for beginners.

In our Trend Boxx, aimed at current popular bakes, we baked a batch of filled chocolate and hazelnut cookies. They were super decadent and tasted straight from a bakery. All we needed to provide ourselves was 125g of butter. Stuffed cookies with chocolate piping on top can seem intimidating but these were very easy to assemble, a definite perk of attempting a more complicated recipe using a baking kit to get you started. This was a super creative recipe we wouldn’t have found elsewhere.

Both kits come with clearly marked labels with sleek, minimal packaging. Overall, these unique recipes and easy directions make these kits well worth it.

Bake Club

Best baking subscription with added tech

From the professional pastry chefs behind Brigit’s Bakery, comes the subscription service Bake Club. Choose from a 6 or 12 month subscription, or a one-off box for a sweet treat that takes your fancy for £22.95 per month. All the boxes come full of neatly labelled packets with everything you need for your chosen bake, all you need to do is bring the bowls and whisks. Everything you need is included, eggs and all, pre-whisked in handy bottles.

The beauty of Bake Club is the app-based tutorials and instructions. Log in when your box arrives and you’ll be guided step-by-step through the recipe process. You can choose from simple and squidgy walnut brownies or something more challenging if you’re ready to test your skills. We made the easy yet satisfying chocolate brownies and the more advanced chocolate royale, perfect for a special occasion. The recipes don’t skimp on the portions, you’ll be working your way through a pan of treats for days to come. The boxes can also be ordered to arrive in 48 hours if you’re keen to get started.

Mon Dessert

Mon Dessert creates luxurious dessert kits to enhance your baking skills, with recipes including macarons, madeleines and an impressive raspberry charlotte. Alongside the dry ingredients, kits contain relevant equipment, a detailed recipe card and QR code to a video tutorial of the recipe.
Kits can be bought individually or you can subscribe and save. Choose from a rolling (£19.95 a month), three-month (£60) or six-month (£120) subscription. If you receive a recipe you particularly like as part of your subscription, there are refill kits available to buy so you can receive the ingredients again without doubling up on equipment.
We tested the mille feuille recipe kit. The kit feels high-quality and professional. Alongside the recipe and ingredients (packaged in three simple paper bags – all that needs to be added is butter and milk), there is plenty of equipment. Extras include a reusable piping bag and nozzle, a ruler and pizza cutter for accurately cutting the dough and a cocktail stick for perfecting the feathered icing finish.
The recipe is a lengthy 36 steps, which initially seems intimidating, but each step is clear (including a few diagrams) and breaks the recipe down into bite-sized pieces. You can also crack on with the next steps while other elements are chilling, which means this complex recipe doesn’t actually take hours to make. Our top tip is to make sure you read the recipe carefully before you start – some important details are added in small asterisks. We also suggest scanning the QR code to watch a short video of the recipe, which is useful for elements that are clearer when visually explained. Our finished mille feuille have buttery, flaky pastry and a sweet crème patissiere filling – an impressive dessert.
A Mon Dessert subscription is a great way to learn new baking skills and try recipes that may seem intimidating without the extra guidance from the kit. Considering the equipment included, the subscribe-and-save model is excellent value for money.

If I Knew You Were Coming

Best baking subscription for cookies

Cumbria-based If I Knew You Were Coming have plenty of baking subscriptions to choose from – from a standard 3, 6 or 12 month baking package to specific options if you really know what you like, such as a muffin, brownie, mug cake or cookie subscription.

We tested out the white chocolate and cranberry cookies recipe, a popular Great Taste Award winning recipe featured across many of the subscription plans. The simple kit arrived in sleek cardboard packaging that handily came straight through the letterbox. Inside were three clearly labelled bags – ‘sugar mix’, ‘flour mix’, ‘white chocolate and cranberries’ along with the recipe card. We loved that the kit was cleverly wrapped in branded baking parchment, ready to line your baking trays. Only 55g butter and an egg was needed from us to make the cookies, which were easy and quick to mix. There were generous amounts of the white chocolate and cranberries, and we got 12 (more than the suggested 8!) delicious cookies that looked just like the recipe card. If you find a recipe you love, baking kits are also available to buy individually.

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