The Taste Box recently sent me a sample of their monthly subscription boxes to try out. The box I received was the November one, which just so happened to have the theme “Sugar & Spice” – perfect for baking!

Founded by two food lovers, Matt and Jenni, The Taste Box is a recent entry in the monthly-subscription box game. Every month, the duo chooses inspiration from some of their favourite yummy things and carefully curate a box filled with 3-4 food products/ingredients.

Their first few months have sold out and it’s not hard to see why. Many of the other food-subscription boxes I’ve come across are focused on one type of food, or they’re a random assortment of things that don’t belong together. The Taste Box’s themed boxes ensure that you can use many of the contents together in a recipe, but the monthly variation in theme lets you try a variety of different things!

The November ‘Sugar & Spice’ box that I received included the following:
– 1 jar of Chatsworth Summer Floral Honey
– 1 tin of Spice Trader Baking Spice
– 1 tin of Spice Trader Saigon Cinnamon
– 1 Mexican Whole Vanilla Bean from Cardamon & Cloves
– 1 Whole Nutmeg from Cardamon & Cloves

Can I tell you how incredible these spices all smelled? Plus, I loved the fact that they were all small, independent Canadian companies.

Considering how busy my November/December schedule has been, I decided to bake something familiar with a few of these ingredients – Sticky Toffee Pudding. This time though, I substituted the molasses in the recipe with the Chatsworth Summer Floral Honey (after sneaking a spoonful to taste, of course), used the Vanilla Bean instead of vanilla extract and added cinnamon and nutmeg to the toffee sauce.

I don’t even know if I could pick a favourite from the box that I received:
– the Chatsworth Summer Floral Honey was golden and added a lightness to the puddings. I’m a huge fan of all honey, so it was a treat to discover another Ontario honey source
– the Spice Trader tins are very handy. I love the look, feel and labelling so much that I’m pretty sure I’ll be stocking my shelves with more of their spices soon.
– it was such a luxury having a whole vanilla bean and a whole nutmeg to work with! I try to buy these for my baking whenever I can, but it can get pretty expensive, so it was nice to see these in The Taste Box.

Every ingredient from The Taste Box was fragrant and of the highest quality. The Sticky Toffee Pudding (a family favourite) came out the best it ever has and I’m probably going to stick with the substitutions from now on (I’ll be sharing the recipe in a later post).

So, not only did I discover a worthwhile monthly subscription box, I also discovered three Ontario-based Canadian shops that I will definitely be ordering from in the future! How awesome is that?

A subscription to The Taste Box costs $29.95 CDN a month (there are also 3-month and 1-year subscription plans available). Shipping is free, plus, if you join now, you’ll get 15% off your first box.

The Taste Box’s September 2016 box, ‘Last Taste of Summer’

Disclosure: I received a sample of The Taste Box for review purposes. I did not receive any financial compensation for writing this post and the post was not reviewed by the sponsor prior to publication. All opinions expressed are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.