1 Year Blogiversary!!

I made us a cake. Well, I made me a cake and then I took pictures for you.

Sorry I didn’t share but well.. I was really doing you a favor! This way you saved yourself from eating an entire cake. But in case you’re mad, I’ll be posting about the recipe later this week, so you can make it yourself (ETA: it’s a chocolate cake with toasted marshmallow filling and a salted caramel buttercream), and trust me – you will.

In all seriousness, it’s crazy to think that it’s been a year since I sat in Pi Cafe on campus at Wesleyan University and was writing my first blog post, a compilation of iPhone pictures of things I had baked. I was a HUGE reader of food blogs and I still am, but I had never thought it was something I could do until friends pointed it out to me, and I realized that I already was posting pictures on Facebook of everything I was baking – why not write a little about it, take some pictures, and share the recipe.

I had thought for awhile about blog names, trying to make sure that no one else had the same name as me, something that I liked and would allow for growth, something specific enough that would represent what I wanted to write about but at the same time not restrict me in what I made. It took a lot of thinking, a lot of polling my friends, and then finally I thought, just do it.

So I made this blog. It’s undergone some minor layout changes and changes in color. I’ve recently added a post series called “thursday things” as a way to share more about myself, let my family (Hi Mom, Hi Dad) know more about what’s going on in my life, that might not come up in phone calls, and also share crazy things I’m loving without spamming Facebook with a bazillion (apparently this really is a real word.. mind blown.) links. I hope my photography has been getting better – definitely helped that I got a beautiful Canon Rebel T3 for Christmas!

My most popular post was my Healthy Toasted Quinoa Granola Bars, followed by the Lemon Limoncello Cupcakes. Following in third through fifth place were these Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, Swedish Saffron Rolls, and Red Velvet Donuts. I was able to post 22 recipes this year, and I’d like to double the amount I share for this upcoming year.

I’ve had people from all over the world check this blog out which I think is awesome and crazy. I never set out to make a blog that tons of people read. I expected it to be me, my mom, my dad, my brother, and maybe a few friends that were forced to view it after spamming their Facebooks. But truthfully – to have over 7000 pageviews in a year, I’m thrilled. I’ve had the US, Canada, UK, Russia, Germany, Australia, France, Netherlands, Latvia, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Ukraine, Greece and Israel, just to mention a few countries. So to anyone around the world – thank you. I hope you’ll keep checking this out 🙂

I’ve conquered some things in baking – I completely made up my first recipe ever – these quinoa granola bars and I took a recipe and instead of adapting it with small tweaks and changes, I overhauled it and made my own version of Chocolate Cupcakes for Two. I baked and decorated my first legitimate cake, I’ve made french macarons (though I didn’t post about those – when I attempt them again, I will), I’ve slowly been pushing myself out of my comfort zone with baking by trying to adapt more and try things out myself. The thing I love about baking is the methodical and mathematical nature. Put these things together and they will be delicious.

Some goals I have for the next year – be more experimental with baking. Try some harder recipes. Bake some homemade bread. Make ice cream from scratch. But most importantly, keep baking and keep sharing.

Though speaking of sharing – I’m sorry for not sharing any of this cake with you. It barely lasted 24 hours and I ate it for breakfast this morning. But don’t worry, this cake recipe will appear soon, so you can make yourself a cake too!