Uncategorised Archives - Jenny is baking

Best of 2018

Today on the first day of 2019 I thought it would make sense to do a best of 2018. From your point of view. For that I am going to introduce your ten favorite recipes here, the ones you click and commented the most. As some recipes got featured in MSN and Yahoo in December, I had to patiently wait until the last day to actually have a look at the final result. I have to say, this was also very interesting for me, you know checking and realizing what you actually enjoy. But let’s get started:

#10 No-bake lime cheese cake

This no-bake lime cheese cake is completely gluten free and needs no baking at all. You may want to give it a try during the cold season as well. Especially if you have any limes left over after your New Year’s celebration 😉

#9 Colombian sweet bread or roscónes

This is a sweet yeast dough filled with guava paste. In my opinion the best sweet bread from Colombia, hands down.

#8 One-pot vegetable lasagna

Yes, you will find savory dishes on my blog occassionally. Apparently you like this dish a lot. What I like about this recipe is that it comes together so quickly, all you need is a good skillet. The recipe can also be made vegan and is perfect for a healthy dinner.

#7 Colombian cheese balls or buñuelos

I am very excited that this recipe made it into the top ten, considering that I only published it in December. The best part? They are deep-fried and gluten free, the best snack on earth!

#6 Plum tart with cinnamon streusel

This recipe has been passed down and been circled around friends and family. I can’t believe it took me so long to finally introduce it here. No wonder you loved it, too.

#5 Vegan Oreo chocolate cake

I am excited that this guest post from Ramona from the blog somegreenlife made it to number 4. And in case you didn’t know, yes, Oreos are vegan and this cake tastes like a gigantic Oreo cake!

#4 Colombian corn bread with cheese filling or arepa boyacense

Yes, these are gluten free (do you start seeing the pattern?) and they are filled with mozzarella. I love this as a snack, no wonder you loved this recipe as much as I do!

#3 Chocolate lava cake

You will need only few ingredients to make this happen. I provide tips on how to be sure for the center to actually be lava.

#2 Heidesand cookies

These cookies have very few ingredients and are the most tender and buttery cookie you can possibly imagine. The best cookie for vanilla shortbread lovers. No wonder it is in the top three.

#1 Letter cake with raspberry cream

I made the famous letter or number cake with sponge cake and filled it with raspberry cream. Apparently you love this fluffy cake with macaron decoration, too! For that reason I made another number cake, this time I filled it with lemon cream and a touch of mint, you know after all that heavy Christmas food 😉 Feel free to check out the recipe here.

I hope you had a wonderful New Year’s celeberation and that 2019 has a lot in store for you!

01/01/2019

Blog Event Colorful Food and a Fruit Pizza

I am excited to say that tommorow a new blog event gets started! Spring is here and finally all things fresh and bright are popping up. I want to encourage you to get some color into your food so therefore I am organizing the blog event “Colorful Food”! The basic idea is that you pick one rainbow color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, or pink) and create a dish with it. The color has to come from the ingredients themselves, no artificial food coloring allowed. On top of that I present a fruit pizza here with all rainbow colors, because how else can you celebrate this event? For the recipe, please scroll down.

Are you interested in taking part? This is what you have to do:

From May 1, 2018 until June 30, 2018 you have to create a recipe/dish in one rainbow color (yes, you have to color-code this time, your recipe should only be in one main color), no artificial food coloring allowed, only natural coloring. The recipe can be anything, ranging from sweet, savory, drink, dessert or main dish as long as it is in one color. Please don’t use posts from your archive, but only newly created ones.
Post the recipe with at least one picture on your blog, come back here, leave your blog post via inlinkz (scroll down) and have a look what the others created.

30/04/2018

Summary of my Blog Event

From February 15, 2018 until March 15, 2018 I asked people to take part in the coffee invite event. The basic idea was for you to make something from scratch and invite somebody over. There was no give-away. So today the event is over and the question is how it went. The answer is, it was great, yet different than expected. I received a lot of messages of people telling me that they were inspired and that they invited somebody over. I also know that the four guest bloggers Nina, Lisha, Marileen and Lizet invited people over. Usually people would either come over to me and be like “You inspired me, I actually baked something and invited my best friend.” I would then reply: “Wonderful, did you take a picture of it?” And the typical reply was: “Oooops, I forgot.” So unfortunately I don’t have a lot of proof of all these coffee invites. However, people did take part. And that is what counts for me. I didn’t want people to just make a recipe in order to generate clicks, I didn’t want people to bake to post later nice pictures on Instagram, I simply wanted to inspire people to share what they had baked.

So as stated, I don’t have a lot of proof other than messages, but below you will find the pictures that were actually submitted. Some bloggers also took part, so yay! I will still call the event a success. As long as people had fun, as long as they were inspired to make something from scratch, I would say we achieved great. Some people also pointed out to me that I was basically doing this during lent. But seriously, there is more than cake you can make, for example I also have some sugar free muffins on this blog I am sure don’t count as sweets during lent. But whatever, I know for a fact that people did bake and did invite somebody over, that’s all that counts!

16/03/2018

Review of my first year of blogging

It is very common to present a “Best of” either at the end of the old year or beginning of the new year. Which one were the favorite posts of year X, which ones were liked most, etc. However, I’ve decided to do my review for my first blog anniversary. I know, it is not that common, but somehow I feel it’s the perfect time. I was inspired by Sabine’s questions from the German blog Schmeckt nach mehr. Instead of only presenting the most liked and clicked recipes, she invites to answer eight questions about the blog and do to a review. Very suitable after the first year, don’t you think? For that reason may I present the eight questions:

#1 What was your most successful blog post from your first year?

I am happy to say that the Molten Lava Cake made it to the top quickly, it is the most clicked blog post as of now, but also faires very well on Pinterest. It not only makes me happy as I love chocolate, but also since it is a rather new post I posted towards the end of my blogging year. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be an “old” recipe to make it to the top. And here is a little secret about the pictures I took: I took them in a record time of ten mintues. Normally I am fairly slow taking pictures, I am still learning the ropes. But for two reasons I had to be ultra fast this time. One, the lava part disappears quickly if you don’t react fast. Two, I usually take pictures on the balcony since we live in Hamburg and have crappy light about half of the year. I distinctly remember it being very cold, almost freezing and me doing my best to get back in quickly…

Molten Lava Cake

16/02/2018

Blog Event: Invitation to a Coffee plus a Whisky Chocolate Caramel Cake

Exactly one year ago my first blog post Lemon Tarts went online. This means “Blogger Happy Birthday To Me”, yay! I thought really long and hard as to what to do for my first birthday. Somehow I feel everything has been done already. And since I am a stubborn person, I also wanted something more than a boring give-away just to lure in more readers. That’s simply not me, regardless of what marketing says.

Yes, this is a baking blog and I hope that my recipes are mouth-watering for my readers. Yes, I also started this blog since I have been asked to share recipes many times and I simply find baking relaxing. But for me the main purpose of baking is to share the baked goods with others. That’s why I invite you to my event. I ask you to bake something, regardless of whether this is a recipe which was passed down in your family, whether you find a recipe you want to try on my/a blog or whether it is one from a cookbook. It doesn’t matter whether you follow a recipe to the dot or whether you alter a recipe to your liking. Be it cookie, cake, something small, a complicated layer cake, whether you spend hours in the kitchen or you whip something in a jiffy, it all doesn’t matter, as long as you follow one rule. The one and only rule is that you have to share your baked goods with at least one guest.

This is the core of baking for me. That you share, sitting together at a table, chatting, laughing, crying, that you indulge yourself in some cake and learn about the other. I strongly believe that it doesn’t matter if you spent hours baking or went for a simple cookie, as long as you did it with love and passion, I am sure your guest(s) will notice.

For that reason I invite you as of today, February 15, 2018 until March 15, 2018 to invite at least one guest and to bake something for this person for that occasion. I invite you to take a picture, either just of what you baked, or with the permission of your guest, also of your invites and to tell me how the event went. Once the timeframe is over, I will do a roundup on this blog.

15/02/2018

Food Advent Calendar “Spice It Up!”

Finally, I have been waiting patiently for today. Finally I can announce the Food Advent Calendar “Spice It Up!”, which I decided to organize. A Food Advent Calendar, you ask? Have you ever heard of the tradition of the advent calendar? The basic idea is that waiting for Christmas is made more bearable. Advent calendars are sold in Germany as calendars with little doors to open on every day. Usually chocolate is hidden behind each door, so you are officially allowed to eat a little piece of chocolate between December 1 to 24. Sounds great, doesn’t it? At least for me as a big chocolate lover I have always loved that idea.

I decided to organize an Advent Calendar of my own kind. I asked 24 bloggers from all around the world to join me and each present a new recipe on their blog as their little treat. The Food Advent Calendar is called “Spice It Up” because I wanted everybody to use a typical spice of the season in their freshly created recipes.

So every day as of tomorrow until Christmas we will visit blogs which freshly invented recipes. And see which spice they used. And be excited. At least I am very excited. I have the honor of posting the first recipe tomorrow. Just to give you a sneak peek:

As our world is a very visual place, I decided to create a visual representation of the Advent Calendar, if you click on the “doors” below, you will find the recipes contributed. However, as in real life, you are only allowed to see one door per day, so tomorrow only door number 1 will lead to a new recipe. Please be sure to return to check out all recipes. After December 24 all 24 recipes will remain available.

People who are participating are as follows:

December 1, I will feature tonka bean in a sweet bread tomorrow on this blog

December 2, Rachel from Dishing Up Dinner will feature nutmeg in a cookie

December 3, Jyoti from The Hungry Belly will feature saffron in a dessert

December 4, Natalie from Natalie Journeys will feature nutmeg in a drink

December 5, Renea from Inspire A Creation will feature peppermint in a dessert

December 6, Samira from Samira’s Recipe Diary will feature cardamom in a dessert

December 7, Markus from Earth Food and Fire will feature cloves in a side dish

December 8, Candi from Make Ahead Meal Mom will feature nutmeg in a main dish

December 9, Rachael from Coloured Plates will feature star anise in a condiment

December 10, Kori from I Rok the Kitchen will feature ginger in a cookie

December 11, Megan from Life on Paradise Drive will feature pumpkin pie spice in a dessert

December 12, Leslie from Deliciously Plated will feature cardamom in a beverage

December 13, Tanya from Food Forage will feature ginger in a dessert

December 14, Ali from Fix Me a Little Lunch will feature bay leaves in a cocktail

December 15, Daniela from Dani’s Cookings will feature cinnamon in a cake

December 16, Neha from Witty Mushroom will feature cardamom in a dessert

December 17, Lizet from Chipa by the Dozen will feature aniseed in a cookie

December 18, Jillian from Simple Sassy Scrumptious will feature cinnamon and cloves in a cookie

December 19, Renea from Inspire a Creation will feature almond in a dessert

December 20, Angela from Bake It with Love will feature nutmeg in a dessert

December 21, Kaveri from Pretty Little Things will feature ginger in a dessert

December 22, Nataliya from The Friendly Gourmand will feature clove in a side dish

December 23, Myriam from Milly’s Melting Pot will feature vanilla in a cookie

December 24, I will do a roundup on this blog

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30/11/2017

And the winner is…

I asked you guys to comment on my blog for a give-away. People in the European Union had the chance to win a custom-made cake by me, people outside the European Union had the chance to win this beautiful retro-style food scale from Dr. Oetker. If you want to read further details, check here.

Well, today I would like to announce the winner: (drumroll, please) THE WINNER IS….

Hilde!

I already contacted her. I believe Hilde lives in the U.S., so she will get the scale.

As a small heads-up:

I got into baking French macarons. Recipe will follow shortly. I am even going to host a macaron-baking afternoon. Will definitely keep you posted how that is going to turn out. Really excited to have some girls come over and listen to French chansons!
I can’t believe I am writing this, but I have a vegan cake waiting in the fridge to be eaten. Recipe will also follow shortly here. I don’t want to give away any details, but it is definitely a summer recipe, yay!
Maybe you want to try eclairs but always found them too scary? Don’t be, this is a recipe I can recommend.

Anyway, have a great weekend ahead and let me know what you are planning on baking this weekend!

Merken

01/07/2017