As 2016 is drawing to a close and this is our 100th post on the blog, it seemed fitting for us to take a second and reflect back on the journey so far.
It’s safe to say when we started we never thought the blog would end up being so important to us, although it’s taken up until now for us to go from saying we have a food blog to calling ourselves food bloggers. There have certainly been highs and lows along the way, but when you start writing about something you’re passionate about, it’s hard to stop!
We’ve recently entered for the blog awards (hey, why don’t you vote for us?! just click here), and as part of the application we had to say our 2 favourite recipes. This got us thinking about the recipes we’d loved, so here are out top 5:
5. Kinder Bueno Cupcakes. This was one of our earlier posts but a long time favourite of ours because we had a glen coco moment with them (if you know, you know…).
4. Pink Grapefruit, Pomegranate and Pistachio Pavlova. This one was not only a delicious dessert but one of very few recipes where we successfully managed a delicate touch (normally we’re all about hefty and over indulgent tray bakes!). Also that grapefruit curd was a bit of an experiment for us and turned out pretty damn good!
3. Oreo Millionaires Shortbread. It wouldn’t be our top 5 without a millionaires recipe (spoiler alert, another one made the cut too!)
2. Salted Caramel and Pistachio Macarons. We’ve had a long standing love affair with this delicious french patisserie item, and although a little fussy, one our our favourite things to make! We’ve posted a few different macaron recipes but these ones are definitely the best in our eyes.
1. S’mores Millionaires Shortbread. This is our number one (of course it was going to be a millionaires recipe) mostly because when we made them and had our first taste we immediately wanted to eat the whole tray…
Although our Creme Egg Millionaires Shortbread post doesn’t quite make the top 5 for us, it proved very popular at easter this year, gaining over 1,500 views in a day, as well as hundreds of re-pins on Pinterest! We’d been having a slow increase in views up until this point, when this post sky rocketed. It became clear we needed to pay more attention to the blog and began being more strict with getting at least one post up a week.
Another step forward for us this year was being featured on the Wayfair website, you can check out our Bacon and Caramelised Onion Sausage rolls we made for them here. After the Cream Egg Millionaires success had subsided, it was nice to get some recognition (from someone other than our mothers…).
It’s not too surprising that after a year and a half we’ve improved on the blogging front somewhat! We entered the blogging world with a decent grasp on photography but it’s evident how much the past year and a half of recipes has helped us improve. Take these 2 photos for example, the first is from our fourth post on the blog, Drunk Jaffa Cakes, and the second from our Oreo millionaires. Both bite shots, a favourite of ours (and a handy way to start tucking in before you’ve finished photographing). The first one we used to think was a great photo, until we looked backed recently found it funny how out of focus it was!!
The road hasn’t always been smooth and there are recipes that caused much frustration and sometimes didn’t make the cut (RIP all the burnt baked goods…) and trying to explain to someone that you can’t do something or go somewhere because there’s baking for the blog that needs to be done isn’t always easy! Future bloggers out there, be warned, it takes over your life… if you’ve already got a full time job, it’s like having a second full time job. Also you will be inundated with people expecting samples of your baked goods… That being said, we’ve had a lot of fun, learnt new skills and eaten countless delicious things!
