Blog Review 2025

Today I am going to do the traditional review of this blog year 2025 as I do every year. I am going to answer 8 questions from the German blog feedmeupbeforeyougogo. This time I decided to change two of the questions, I feel they fit better. But let’s get started:

#1 What was your most successful blog post in 2025?

For 11 months straight it was this raspberry chocolate cake, which made me super excited, finally a new number 1! However, as soon as December came around, it went to second place and the famous brownie cookies are back on being THE number 1. Again. I think they have been since they are on the blog, which was in 2018. Sigh. But they are so extremely delicious, I cannot be mad for too long. However, I do see a change in that the top blog posts are slowly moving closer to each other, they are only a few thousand hits apart and the runner-up is viewed almost as much as number 1. For that reason I would like to mention number 5 as well: plum yeast dough. It was viewed the most in late summer and beginning of fall. Since it was viewed by so many, I decided to make it again, just to be sure it was as delicious as I remembered it. I tweaked the recipe a little and have to say, I am very satisfied with the result. My hubby says, during plum season he wants to eat this exact cake day in and day out, that’s how good it is. I believe it will also be delicious with apples.

Plum cake in a springform, probably also delicious with apples

I would also like to mention number 10, French tarte tatin, this is an upside down cake with only four ingredients. It is always tricky to turn it around, each time I am scared something may go wrong. However, I have also realized that in case the apple slices move, you can simply move them back and arrange an organized pattern after baking. As the cake is very popular among my readers, I decided to take new pictures with new backgrounds. I do like below picture a lot, it shows the tart in all its simplicity and deliciousness. Each time I make it, it is gone within minutes.

French apple tart

Even though the question asks for specific blog post, I would like to mention that I am super proud of my blog. Regardless of AI, Pinterest going down in numbers, Instagram having a new algorithm every week (at least that is what I feel), the views on my blog are still stable. In fact, they have increased in numbers, 50% more views than last year. I feel that is amazing, this is doublethe amount! I am still considered a small blog as I have about 100,000 views per month. But I am super proud and wanted to mention it. Maybe I will hit 1,000,000 views in 2026. This year it was 932,000 in total.

#2 Which three of your own blog articles from this year meant the most to you personally?

Number one are these lemon crescents. I decided to do a giveaway. The ideas was to leave a comment and I would pick a winner to gift a cookie box with homemade cookies. I thought maybe 50, 60 people would comment, I feel fewer people comment on blogs, most of it is done on social media nowadays. However, I was so surprised when more than 400 people participated. I had originally planned to only gift one cookie box, but decided to make two due to the sheer amount of responses. The two winners were so excited and it made me want to continue my blog and publish further recipes.

Sweet yeast bread from Mexico, pan de muerto

Number 2 would be pan de muerto, sweet yeast bread from Mexico, which is made on November 2. My company had decided to make a Mexican event, so I volunteered and decided to make the bread. Not because I am Mexican or anything, but simply because I enjoy trying new recipes, especially from Latin America. My colleagues seemed so surprised, but I find it satisfying transforming oral recipes into precise measurements with consistent results. Often recipes are only by video and don’t give exact measurements.

Number 3 would be the 10 tips for strudel dough, which I published at the beginning of the year. I still had the “strudel fever” in 2025, you will find not only classic apple strudel, but also rhubarb strudel and apricot strudel on my blog. Even when I was on holiday in Spain, I made cherry strudel for my relatives. I am excited that people have been sending me messages, telling that they tried for the first time and proudly presented their strudels to me. Holes are not the end of the world, the most important is for you to enjoy making strudel, have fun! As I had promised in 2024, in 2025 I published more tips and tricks and how tos than before. I enjoy passing on what I have learned on the way. If you are interested in that, check out this blog post.

I made cherry strudel in Spain

#3 And which three from other blogs have inspired you the most?

For this I will refer to Instagram, Latinos simply prefer video to a blog.. The first I would like to mention is the Uruguayan Cathy who introduces a lot of Argentinian and Uruguayan recipes, obviously this inspires me. I also like the fact that she does use gram measurements, yay. The second one is the Peruvian Marvic Rodriguez, she has a lot of Latin American recipes I enjoy. The Mexican Ana is a magician with buttercream, she makes a lot of flowers. Her account is very romatic. In general I enjoy following Latin American accounts with large followings with over 500,000 followers. They are often unknown in the German-speaking world. I see it as my mission to translate the recipes and if needed, add precise measurements for consistent results.

#4 Which of the recipes you published in 2025 have you cooked the most yourself – and why?

Definitely pan de bonos, which are Colombian cheese puffs (gluten-free!). I have made them so often, I know the recipe by heart. My hubby loves them so much, if it were for him, we could eat them daily. I guess it is understandable since he is Colombian. I published a third recipe on my blog as I have tried with many different cheeses that are available in Germany. Currently I like to use the Russian cheese named “tvorog” the best, this can be bought in Aldi, Lidl and Norma. My parents-in-law also always request I make them when we visit. As they live in Spain, I have also tried my share of Spanish cheeses. I like queso de Burgos best for good results in Spain.

You will see here a glimpse of the many pan de bonos I made in 2025

Pan de bonos made with tvorog cheese in Germany

#5 Did you see some kind of development of your blog in 2025?

If you look at the numbers, I posted 22 recipes from Latin America and about 19 German recipes (this was mainly due to the cookie series I did in November). Then I have 14 from the English-speaking world (quite a few from the UK/Scotland), and the remainder was either from other countries, how tos, summaries, a blog event, or a coffee date.  I was very busy this year, on average I post 60 post per year, that’s slightly more than one per week. I usually post on Friday. However, this year I have posted 74 articles. So as you can see, I am not idle and I am not running out of ideas. My baking list keeps getting longer rather than shorter. I still want to focus on recipes from North America and Latin America. However, I feel that American recipes are known in Germany, at least much more so than Latin American recipes. So I may switch the focus more to Latin America in the future. More so than I am currently doing.

#6 How much time do you invest in your blog?

A lot. I still am doing this blog as my hobby and I am not planning on changing this any time soon. I find it so sad to see bloggers leaving, due to ChaptGPT and all the changes it involves. Yes, it is a lot of work. Consider the fact that you need to buy the ingredients (hello inflation), you need to bake/make the recipe, you may have to tweak it, so do the whole thing over again and then you need to take pictures, write everything down (mind you, I do this twice, in English and Germna), proofread, publish, etc. I believe I can’t put a new recipe out there without having spent at least six hours on it. A layered cake with several components can easily take 12 hours before it gets on the blog. I often feel that only other food bloggers understand how much time it needs. But I don’t want  to complain, I mean, nobody is forcing me, this is my hobby. I could stop if I wanted to at any given moment. It also gives me the freedom to post what I want, I don’t need to follow trends, I don’t need to constantly worry what my readers want. But if you want to know numbers and this is what the review is about, I would say I definitely spend at least half an hour to an hour on the blog each day in some form or another. Usually after work, sometimes even before. But this is my space, this is where I can be creative and this is where I can put my creative side into motion. I would say my favorite part is taking pictures. I am more of the “go with the flow” type of girl, I hate having to use the tripod and I try to avoid it as much as I can. I often have an idea of what I want to go for and start setting everthing up. I don’t sketch anything beforehand, but it needs to “feel” right. I believe this also has to do with the fact that I was a jazz pianist for a while, I never was into reading sheet music, but instead would improvide and compose music myself. It needs to be free,  not defined, I need to have room to breathe. Usually I only take between 5 to 10 minutes to take pictures (not including setting up and cleaning up afterwards). Short and sweet is how I like it. Below you see some behind the scenes, which are typical for me. I first had planned to use the background with the white tiles with a bit of blue, but somehow that didn’t feel right, so I tried the darker background and really liked it. You can see the final result of the torta negra, which I liked so much better.

First I wanted to use the background with white tiles with a bit of blue. However, I didn’t like it and used a darker one instead

#7 What was the best (or funniest) search term through which visitors found your blog?

As before, there are a lot of questions asked. One is „how to make sponge batter?“ (still number 3 on the blog), or „how to make a Christmas cake look festive.” I want to continue writing blog articles in which I teach and pass on the knowledge I have about baking. For example the article 10 tips for strudel dough just went on the blog 11 months ago, yet it is already your number 17. This shows me that people are looking for answers and have baking questions I am happy to answer.

#8 What do you wish for yourself and your blog in 2026?

When I did the giveaway of the cookie boxes, I was excited that more than 400 people participated. However, I was also disappointed, a few people tried to cheat. Instead of leaving just one comment, they tried to leave more. I mean, I can see the IP address and also email it was sent from. After a while I decided to delete all those comments and disqualify them. It saddens me that it was more than one person who attempted to leave more comments than allowed. The same holds true for comments on the recipes. If you don’t like my recipes, just leave and don’t return, but this whole attitude of pointing fingers, getting personal, I don’t need that and I am definitely not going to publish any of those comments. Instead I am looking for an open and honest communication. I am so happy that so many readers are willing to share beloved family recipes with me. I feel so honored. My baking list is getting longer and longer. I have received invitations of people who are from Uruguay and now live in Germany, some shared photos of the strudel they made with me. I was also happy to gift a cancer patient a cookie box and remember fondly the reader in Munich who organized rhubarb for me from wholesales as I needed it early on for my blog. These kind of encounters is what I am looking for, this is what I want to happen in 2026 as well. I hope that this can be a space where we enjoy and have fun baking, that we get to know each other a little bit and above all, that we bake with a lot of love. For that reason I picked the below picture as it captures the essence of what I am hoping for. It shows my intern from work Julie and me while we did a virtual cookie baking in December (you can see the laptop with some more colleagues) It was so much fun showing Julie, who had never made German cookies before, and to teach also the other colleagues and enjoy. This is exactly what I am hoping for in 2026.