So apparently being a big giant ball of stress can result in you catching the plague yet again. I find myself once again best friends with a bottle of NyQuil, so today I decided to add some sugar to make my medicine go down. The awesome folks at Whisk & Flour sent me a baking box to review. For reference, I love baking. I have a giant cabinet full of different cookie cutters and baking pans. I even have a 90th anniversary cherry red Kitchen Aid. So you can imagine I was super excited to try a monthly baking box.
A little about Whisk & Flour:
“Whisk & Flour was founded by Donna Doktorcik with the belief that artisanal baking should be within reach for everyone. The Whisk & Flour team has focused on bringing unique recipes and ingredients to everyone. We love hunting down creative ingredients and creating yummy treats for everyone to share!”
How It Works:
Whisk & Flour curates recipes with artisanal ingredients like matcha, candied ginger, dulce de leche. No fancy equipment or techniques required.
You sign up for monthly deliveries. (First box ships the 15th of the following mont h and you can cancel at any time).
They send all the dry ingredients pre-measured along with a recipe card and easy to follow instructions. You provide the butter and eggs. Every few months they will include a Baking accessory.
The cost is $28 per month. Delivery is free and they use eco-friendly packaging.
A cute little box arrives with an adorable label:
I can’t wait to see what recipe I’ve got…and then…
Matcha? Cookies?
I’ll admit I was immediately disappointed. Green tea tastes like medicine to me and this wasn’t what I was expecting. I had anticipated a recipe to match the season – some Fall flavors like cinnamon or ginger. But I had to give it a chance.
The box was packaged adorably and the ingredients came in a cute little sack that I’m going to reuse to hold some cookie cutters. All the ingredients had lovely labels and were pre-measured. Included was a half-sheet pan silpat. Silpats are great for baking and I already own the full size, however, I was confused by this inclusion. You couldn’t use this for the included recipe as it makes too many cookies. (You need a regular size sheet pan). I also feel like a half sheet pan size is not something everyone would own. Silpats are great, baking accessories are awesome, but this one didn’t quite make sense to me in this box.
So now it’s time to start the actually baking.
For this recipe I needed to provide 5 Tbsp of butter and 1 egg yolk. We cream together butter and the included powder sugar and sift together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
We add in the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, then fold in the white chocolate chips.
We shape the dough into a square log and refrigerate for 1 hour. The chilled log gets sliced and the cookies get put on a baking sheet with a mat and baked in a 300 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes.
They get removed from the oven and chill on a baking rack.
And when I’m done this is the finished product:
So what did these taste like? Delicious buttery cookies with the faintest hint of basement. Seriously, I can’t get past the Matcha taste. For me it took away from what should have been a delicious cookie. Don’t’ get me wrong they still got eaten, because there’s still butter and sugar goodness. Unfortunately, I thought the Matcha detracted from the cookie rather than enhanced it.
OVERALL
Verdict: Lots of Potential.
I’m going to start with the positive. I love the idea of this sub and how everything is so nicely packed and pre-measured. I also appreciate the approach with the artisanal ingredients, but I wish they had matched the season more. I think at this time of year we should see maple, cinnamon, ginger and more Autumnal flavors. I also think that $28 a box is steep, if you’re not getting an accessory every month. I think the box should include a small accessory to use in the provided recipe. For example, maybe maple butter cookies with a maple leaf cookie cutter, or maybe a cake slicer to make a lemon layer cake in the Spring, or specialty sprinkles for cupcakes and so on. Even though the Matcha wasn’t a fit for my palate, Whisk & Flour has a ton of great looking recipes on their site that I think I would have loved.
What types of treats would you want a baking subscription to include?
THE BACKSTORY
Each month Whisk & Flour sends a beautiful recipe card with step-by-step instructions, all the shelf-stable ingredients pre-measured, and some fun facts about the recipe you are making. Plus, they add baking accessory every few months as a bonus! You bake, {maybe share}, and definitely enjoy!
Monthly Cost: $28 per month
And shipping is always free!
Lisa Preziosi 
Thank you for this review! I would have been very disappointed with their selection this month too. I really don’t understand the obsession with everything matcha. I’ve tried it in several different forms and my attitude is always that some other flavor would have been better. But glad to know about this subscription.
I looked at the recipes on their site and there are so many delicious looking ones. I’m sure any of those would have been a bigger hit for me personally.