Former lawyer moves to Yorkshire and launches baking at home business

It was more than a decade ago that Jennifer Hawkins had the idea for her BakeBox business.

But it was only this March, just weeks before lockdown, that she actually launched her baking subscription baking box .

“I was a lawyer in the City of London until we moved to Yorkshire and I did a number of things including running a little bakery,” explains Jennifer

“It was during that time that I got the idea for Bake Box. But I then ended up helping my husband run his building company. Then around 18 months ago we were selling our house and I thought I am going to give this a go. And then at the beginning of lockdown just after we had launched and everyone was turning to home baking I thought this could really work.”

Jennifer’s idea was to create a monthly subscription box providing all the ingredients (other than wet ingredients such as eggs, milk and cream) to make a luxury bake

“Growing up I used to watch my Mum bake with frugal ingredients, no scales and no recipe. Repeating the same recipe time after time and filling our house with smells and excitement,” explains Jennifer.

“Becoming a mum myself over 20 years ago and working in law in the City meant time with my daughter was precious. Baking was one of our favourite things to do.

“Leaving law to open my own little bakery years later meant income was not always guaranteed and everything I baked had to be cost effective. I learnt how to write my own recipes and to sell them with the ingredients out of my tiny shop near Wimbledon.

“Fast forward a decade, living in the Yorkshire Dales and married to a beautiful Yorkshireman, all shopping trips can turn into a day out. Finding a solution to hoarding store cupboard ingredients and still being able to bake has led me to BakeBox.”

She created a prototype and sent it to her best friend who said she thought it was ‘brilliant’.

“I knew I wanted to create a subscription services. There are a lot of subscription boxes out there but most of them are veg boxes or recipe boxes, but I didn’t know of many baking boxes.”

She set about designing her boxes, selecting the recipes sending them to friends to test whether they worked and then sorting out printing and making the boxes.

Then lockdown happened.

“Once I knew lockdown was coming I wasn’t sure we should go ahead and launch, but my husband said ‘do it, just do it’.

But lockdown meant the unit she had planned to use to prepare her Bake Boxes was no longer available.

Then someone mentioned Appletreewick Village Hall might be available.

“The village hall wasn’t being used for anything and it has a commercial kitchen and so was perfect.”

Helped by friend Nathalie Taylor, who lost her job during lockdown, Jennifer set about putting her first Bake Boxes together.

But with no trade shows or craft fairs she had to look at alternative ways of getting her product to market. I really wasn’t a fan of social media. I was always scared of online bullying but I soon realised Facebook and Instagram were the best ways of telling people about Bake Box. And I was so surprised by the reaction, everyone has been so nice.”

Her first box was just before Easter and so it had to be chocolate based, she says.

“I had been making this particular chocolate cake for years but I really wanted to make it special. The whole point of Bake Box is that we give subscribers something different, something that if they were to buy the ingredient themselves would be very expensive.”

The chocolate cake included gold leaf and top quality chocolate.

“Because I buy in bulk I can get these quality ingredients at a cheaper price.”

Having a network of suppliers, as local as possible, meant the unlike many people Jennifer didn’t run out of ingredients such as flour and sugar.

“I also want to make baking ingredients accessible to out of the way places where people may struggle to get them.”

Jennifer also likes to include a gift in her boxes.

“We also do our best to cater for any allergies or dietary requirements. If we can swap something out we will.”

Subscribing to Bake Box and the junior version Little Bake Box costs £18 for the adult box and £9 for the junior one.

You get a monthly recipe and ingredients, but people are also able to buy special year round boxes such as Jennifer’s celebration cake. One off box purchase cost £20 and £10 respectively.

Since launching in March she has 300 subscribers.

“Things did start to go a little quiet in January when people started to go back to work or were on holiday but since then things have really started to take off again.”

For October she has special Hallowe’en bake.“People don’t know what they are going to get, we really like it to be a treat and surprise when they open their box which is delivered via Royal Mail.”

Bake Boxes are posted out every Wednesday and whenever someone joins within the month they will get that month’s bake.

She is launching a Christmas Bake Box which people can order as a one off or as part of their subscription.

“They make really nice presents as well as they have a gift in and are beautifully packaged.”