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This is an unusual blog post, I am hosting a blog event about coffee! I am inviting all food bloggers to take part in this all throughout of October. I am asking bloggers to publish recipes that do contain coffee/espresso as one ingredient. It can be instant coffee, strong espresso, coffee, or reduced coffee syrup. Whatever form or shape you use coffee in, feel free to join this blog event in October 2025. It doesn’t matter if you are thinking of something savory or sweet, if you add coffee to a sauce or have it as the main ingredient, as long as you use it in your recipe, you can take part. Additionally, there will be a giveaway. I will randomly select one winner among the participants and gift this person 700 grams of coffee of his/her choice (can be two varieties) from the online shop Pacandé. Pacandé is a coffee roaster based in Munich, Germany and they only sell Colombian coffee beans. I personally love them so that is why I felt compelled to gift this to one winner. I have to say, since I visited a coffee place in Colombia in 2027 and saw with my own eyes how to harvest, dry and roast coffee, I drink each cup of coffee differently. I am more aware and I enjoy it more.
On February 15th my blog is turning 8! It is the 8th blog anniversary. I am happy and excited, yes, I am still in the mood, I still enjoy publishing recipes, even after eight years. Today I brought a refreshing lemin blueberry cake. I was so excited, I even painted some lemons on the outside of the cake with left buttercream. Yes, this cake takes its time, you will need to make three different components and if you are as crazy as me, you will definitely need more than an hour (I needed 1 1/2 hours) to paint the lemons on the outside of the cake. I believe for a special occasion this is definitely worth it. I hadn’t baked these type of cakes in a while, the three-tiered wedding cake for 100 guests was done four years ago, I don’t need to test recipes aynmore. So I decided to only do a smaller cake, the one pictured is 18cm/6inch, for a blog birthday I believe you can make a festive cake again.
Yay, it is time to do a blog review. I am participating in the German initiation by Sabrina and Steffen fron the German blog Feedmeupbeforeyougogo. The idea is to answer eight question and to review what you did in 2024 as a food blogger. I already participated in previous years and I am happy to oblige this year again. So let’s get started.
#1 What was your most successful blog post in 2024?
As in previous years, these delicious brownie cookies. Honestly, I am super happy that by now the recipe has been visited more than half a million times, however, it does get a bit boring. For that reason I am more excited about the fact that this simple apricot sheet cake was visited thousands of times within a few days and made it to number 5. I am considering making that recipe with apples for winter. Maybe I will publish a recipe shortly. I am also amazed and happy that a lot of articles giving tips and tricks are among the top 10. One example is 12 tips for perfect sponge batter (ranking as number 4 in 2024). Another is How to make flowers with buttercream (number 9 in 2024). It seems to be apparent that I come from a family of teachers. Parents, sister, cousins, you name it. I seem to have a teaching gene even though I refused to study to become a regular teacher. However, I have to admit that I love teaching and showing people how to improve. I am very motivated to publish further tips on how to improve certain baking areas. That’s what it is all about, right?
New year, new resolutions? I didn’t make any this year. However, I have been thinking about making a baking bucket list. Things I would like to tackle and bake in this year 2024. Funnily enough, when I got to writing it down, I realized that I had subconsciously already checked off a lot on my list. But not everything yet. If you would like me to tackle more or have some awesome recipe you would like me to try, please let me know by Social Media or email.
With yeast/sourdough
#2 Braided yeast dough for Easter
#3 Croissants
#4 American cinnamon rolls (yes, I finally made them!)
It has by become a tradition for me to participate in the food blog review by the German blog Feed me up before you go go. Each year, eight questions are answered, and a summary is drawn. You can read my food blog review from 2022, 2021, 2020 und 2019 here. My overall conclusion after six years of blogging? I still enjoy it, and there are still people who recreate the recipes. Indeed, the number of visitors and clicks grows every year, so I will certainly continue blogging in 2024, as far as I’m concerned. But now, let’s move on to the questions.
#1 What was your most successful blog post in 2023?
I’m pleased that the all-time favorite brownie cookies was actually surpassed by the strawberry tiramisu, and the cookies only made it to second place. Overall, I’m surprised and delighted that many of the recipes introduced this year made it into the top 10. In total, six recipes from 2023 made it into the top 10, which is really a great result, isn’t it? I want to give special mention to the lightning-fast lemon dessert, which made it to sixth place, and the Kaiserschmarrn with plum compote (seventh place) (see smaller photos). I’m proud of all of them.
Strawberry tiramisu with no raw egg or alcohol
Today my blog is turning six years. Who would have thought! When the lemon tarts went online on February 15, 2017, I thought I would only bake other recipes. I thought I would focus on cookies (big cookie monster speaking) and I would not create anything myself. Yes, I did publish my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe soon on, which was around the 20th recipe I had tested. But I soon realized that I started modifying recipes. Either because Americans tend to overdo it with sugar. All American recipes needed a reduction of sugar to accommodate my tastebuds. Or I had to modify the recipe because I had problems, didn’t find the exact same ingredient in Germany, etc.
My first blog post: French lemon tarts
Same procedure as every year? Same procedure as every year. Again I am going to summarize this year’s blogging experience with the eight questions from Feedmeuobeforeyougogo. So here goes nothing. Featured picture by Daniel Cuervo.
#1 Which one was your most successful blog post in 2022?
Again the brownie cookies are the most popular recipe of 2022. However, I am going to focus on the runner-up because why not. The runner up is the round up with more than 20 Christmas cookies, which were clicked on by more than 44k people within a few days, it was crazy! For me this taught me two things. A) that apparently the German Christmas cookie baking starts earlier than expected. The article went online on November 16th, apparently there are many Germans that like to serve Christmas cookies for the first of advent already. I always thought this was for Christmas, but no, it seems to be much earlier. Also, since Halloween is not a common thing, Christmas basically starts in November. B) sometimes it is so much easier than expected. Writing a roundup is so much less work than preparing a new recipe. You have to structure your roundup properly, but boy, you don’t need to bake and/or cook, you don’t need to shoot pictures, you don’t have to write down ingredients, measurements and steps/instructions. It is so simple in comparison, yet this post was so popular. Below picture shows my cookie plate of 2022, it was the most liked post on Instagram in 2022, which I found very fitting.
Bam, so I am turning 40 today, wow. I am old, suddenly all these terms pop up, such as middle-aged, half time, mid-life crisis, not very encouraging, don’t you think? But I can’t change the fact that I am 40 now. So I figured, OK, so be it, I guess I will have to deal. When we were on holiday in Spain end of July, I asked my in-laws if we could pre-celebrate my birthday, they complied. We had paella, which was prepared by my brother-in-law (thank you again!) and since we couldn’t decide for a flavor, we went for paella mixta, so it had it all, rabbit, chicken, and seafood. I was responsible for dessert (of course) and decided to make tarte tatin with apricots. We drank wine, which is a given in the wine region, we had a wonderful scenery with vineyards and a river, it was just so wonderful! Thanks to my in-laws for this wonderful experience: fue un placer, muchísimas gracias!
Featured picture and above picture by Daniel Cuervo
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