Get Baked Book Review
A cookbook as bright and brash as Get Baked social media presence
Get Baked
Few of us in the baking world could have missed the meteoric rise of Rich Myers and Get Baked. I’m not going to call it an overnight success, because I’m sure a lot of long, hard days were put in before the success kicked in. But from what I saw online, Rich, an incredibly talented baker, took control of his social media presence like very few can. He used it to leverage situations such as being banned from using illegal sprinkles because they had banned e-numbers, to making one of THE most iconic chocolate cake of all time – Bertha, formerly known as Bruce.
Get Baked is now a cult movement Bakery. It’s gone from disgruntled customers always crying that Bruce was out of stock, to becoming one of the busiest and biggest ‘small’ bakeries in the UK. And what they have in balls and brashness, they equal in quality and consistency.
Get Baked – the book
So, of course, I had to buy the book and see if I could reproduce a few of the recipes for myself. The book is as bright and vivacious as the social media presence, with modern photography that does nothing to give any hints of cute or rustic. It is 144 pages of an assault to the eyes. It’s colourful and bold. The photography is brightly lit with sharp contrasting shadows. The Get Baked branding is strong. The bakes are all things you really want to eat!
The book is divided into 6 sections – Chocolate, Nuts, Fruit, Spice, Sugar and Bruce. With a selection of bakes in each section. The recipes are the Get Baked signature bakes you want to be convinced you can recreate. It contains recipes for pies, cookies, brownies, truffles, and of course Bruce. Each recipe starts with a bit of blurb from Rich, who has successfully injected some of his personality and dry sense of humour into every page.
The Recipes
I decided to try a couple of the cookie recipes. I did think about making Bruce, but I didn’t really know what I would do with over 4kg of cake, filled with 6kg of ganache – maybe if I have a special, large occasion coming up, I’ll give it a go.
The recipes I tried were Raspberry-Glazed Donut Cookies and Carrot Cake Cookies. Every recipe has a photo, and every recipe has well written instructions that are never scrimped on. Recipes often flow over 3 or 4 pages. This book is written to be followed, not just to look good with all the instructions on just 1 page for ease of printing.
The recipes use readily available ingredients. There is no hunting or trying to find quirky ingredients to make these recipes. Most are from good, store cupboard ingredients, with a few extra bits you can pick up from the supermarket.
When making the raspberry-glazed donut cookies I was surprised by the use of ‘raspberry flavouring’. How refreshing that a cookbook writer acknowledges that you may not want to go through a 10 step process to make raspberry glaze, and adding a bit of flavouring is the quickest option. I actually didn’t have raspberry flavouring, so I used a strawberry flavouring instead – still tasted great!
The recipes I tried
So, onto the recipes I tried. Both were cookies so had the same base ingredients. What I found interesting was using a mix of strong bread flour and plain (all-purpose) flour. It resulted in a lovely cookie texture with a great chewy quality. It’s something I may do more often when baking cookies.
The method was clearly written. I particularly liked the part about chilling the cookies. I often find some recipe books don’t emphasise this step enough. I also liked the description of how to tell if your cookies are done ‘If they’re still bulging in the centre, then they’re not yet ready.’ You know where you are with instructions like that!
My one criticism was the quantity of salt. I understand my palette may differ from others, but I felt a whole teaspoon of salt for the size of the recipe was just too salty. I made the Glazed Donus Cookies first and reduced the salt content to half a teaspoon when I made the Carrot Cake Cookie.
I didn’t make the same glaze as was in the recipe for the Carrot Cake Cookies. There was no other reason than I was planning on selling these in The Cake Shed, and the UK was predicted a heatwave. The glaze was meant to be cream cheese, which to be honest sounds incredible. But with temperature about to hit over 30°c in the shade, I didn’t want the possibility of cheese going manky on my cookies. I instead made the same glaze as the Glazed Donut Cookies but added orange flavouring instead.
Would I make more from the book?
I really enjoyed this book and will definitely make other recipes from it. I look forward to a day where I have enough friends over that I can make a 10kg Bruce. I’m also looking forward to having a go at some of the pie recipes. Pies aren’t really a big thing in my kitchen, but the Strawberry Limeade Pie is living rent free in my head at the moment and needs to be made soon!
Get Baked by Rich Myers
White Lion Publishing
Hardback. RRP £14.99