Inspired by The Great British Bake Off? If Mary Berry’s floral bomber jackets have put you in the mood for all things cake and pastry related, don’t spend a fortune on equipment. Instead, bag some Jane Asher bargains for £1.
Jane Asher, actress turned baking entrepreneur, has a seriously tasty looking website with absolutely everything you need to get into baking, but what many people don’t know is that she also has a really attractive collection available in Poundland. It includes edible decorations, icing, cake tins and bakeware, baking equipment and accessories – all for £1 each.
So here’s what I managed to pick up in my local Poundland. Where possible, I have listed comparable items from the Jane Asher site:
- 150 muffin cases (60 similar ones are £1.45 on the Jane Asher site)
- 50 pop cake sticks (£1.99 on the Jane Asher site)
- Balloon whisk
- Choco and vanilla frosting 250g (400g of chocolate icing is £3.99 on the Jane Asher site)
- Choco writing icing (three tubes)
- Cake slicer
- Choco flavoured vermicelli 38g
- Three tubes of bright writing icing (£3.99 for four tubes on the Jane Asher site)
- Mini mallows 12g
- Silicone mould for six pop cakes (a more heavy duty (arguably better quality) non-stick coated mould for 12 cakes is £15.95 on the Jane Asher site)
- Six twin edge cookie cutters with plain and fluted edges (£2.95 for six plastic cutters on the Jane Asher site)
- Silver edible glitter 5g (£2.50 on the Jane Asher site)
- Silver balls 41g (£4.45 for 25g on the Jane Asher site)
- Sugar pearls 44g (£3.25 for 90g on the Jane Asher site)
Of course everything in the Poundland range is £1, with the exception of the cake decorations – silver balls, marshmallows, silver edible glitter and sugar pearls – which are two for £1.
Now, as I’m always very serious about thorough research, I thought I’d buy a mountain of chocolate chip muffins and get the MSE team to decorate them to see if the items were nice to work with and most importantly, tasty. (Martin actually caught us ‘testing’ out the cake products and said they were very impressive, so luckily he could see the merit in us eating chocolate chips at work!)
Here’s the feedback from the team:
- Laura – “Really fun, I will stock for a girly evening so we can have some wine and do cake decorating. Good flavour too although very sickly, so should use the frosting sparingly.”
- Alfred – “I found it easy to work with (even if mine came out a real mess!) and enjoyable. Good way to get kids involved in the kitchen. They were really tasty. Very surprised that you could get all that for a bargain price.”
- Josie – “It was genuinely delicious! I ate it in about three bites.”
- Lisette – “The frosting was easy to use and fuss free and the little chocolate stars were really tasty.”
- Helen – “The finished product looked good and professional. Marshmallows didn’t taste very nice though.”
- Freddie – “Can’t believe everything was £1 each. Great range of products and everything was really tasty. I’ll definitely be stocking up!”
Even experienced bakers who enjoy whipping up a pie or two will only use the items a couple of times a month. If you’re going to give baking a go, or just want to have some fun with your kids, don’t spend a fortune – give this stuff a try first.
