Welcome to the Great Library Bake Off!

Calling all bakers, both novice and experienced, amateur and professional! From Monday, March 22nd through Monday, May 3rd, you’ll have the opportunity to participate in three cake baking adventures: a heart-pounding signature challenge, a chocolatey technical, and a deliciously book-ish showstopper. There are great prizes up for grabs at the end for everyone who bakes, whether yours are Great British Baking successes or Nailed It-style flops.

How It Works

• Register! Click here to sign up. Open to adults and teens age 12+.
• View the challenge! Challenges will be linked here as they become available:
  • Announcement and Introduction
  • Signature Challenge (Star Baker Results | View All Entries)
  • Technical Challenge (Star Baker Voting | Recipe)
  • Showstopper Challenge (Showstopper Entries)
  • Great Bake Off Winners (Winners | Honorable Mention)
• Bake! You have two weeks to complete your challenge. Need inspiration? Check out our list of Baking Books & DVDs!
• Submit! Send us pictures of your baking successes AND fails. Don’t be shy—all bakes count!
• Share! After each challenge, join your GLBO hosts for an optional virtual gathering to share your recipe and tell us what went right, what went wrong, and how it all tasted.
• Vote! After each challenge, we’ll put your anonymous creations up for a vote on social media and pick a star baker of the week. 

All bakes must be submitted by the final deadline: May 2nd at 11:59PM.

The Details

You can participate in as many or few of the challenges as you like!

Once you complete a challenge, submit your name, the title of your bake, and your photos to: tbirckhead [at] jmrl.org. Please submit two photos: one view of the whole item, and one of a slice, to show the inside texture. Photos must be submitted before the next challenge is issued to qualify for star baker.

If you miss the original 2 week window for a challenge, you can still submit your bake before the final deadline for an entry into the prize drawing. You won’t be on the voting sheet for star baker for that challenge, though.

Virtual post-bake discussions will be held at 6:30pm on April 5, April 19, May 3. Instructions for joining the discussion via Zoom or phone will be emailed to all registered participants, so make sure you sign up!

The Prizes

Every challenge you participate in gets you an entry into the final drawing for one of two $25 gift cards to The Happy Cook in Charlottesville. Two bakers who participate in all three challenges will be crowned the champions and receive a beautiful wooden spoon and spatula set engraved with “JMRL Bake Off 2021” on the handle at the end. That’s four possible prizes! All are welcome to participate, whether you live in our service area or not, but prizes must be picked up in person at one of our member libraries.

We can’t wait to see your creations. Happy baking!