One of my favorite foods – the berries, loaded with antioxidants
And here are the other five blogs that did not fit space-wise in part 1 of this post. Just to refresh your memory, one of the important criteria in the selection process was to find bloggers that are providing us with great baking ideas, recipes, stories, etc. but not listed on every blogger’s site as a fav, or enjoy 100 plus comments per post. Of course educational, visual and entertaining aspects were not overlooked.
not without salt
The first thing that attracted me to Ashley’s blog is the word poppy-seed on top of the home page. If you have visited my site previously you know that one of my weaknesses in baking is “poppy-seed”. In Hungary, you are thriving on poppy-seed from the moment you born. I think my mother was preparing all her meals with poppy-seed while breast-feeding me.
But seriously, Ashley’s blog is everything a successful baking blog should be – educational, informational, stimulating (all your senses) and entertaining. When selecting blogs as “top” among the so many, I am very much aware of the readers’ need. When you are deciding to prepare a sweet treat, whether for a nice quiet evening with the family or for a celebration of some sort, you want the dessert to be special, but easy to prepare; not time-consuming, but when presenting it to a crowd, you want it to look as if you have labored for hours to create it just for them.
Ashley’s blog, not without salt, fits all the requirements of a leading blogger, with a quest to teach, share and cook everything with love and salt. It also reminded me the story I wrote about a while ago about the importance of salt in our existence; so go ahead and read it, I am sure you will enjoy it.
EGGBEATER
When you are landing on Shuna’s blog, her message is facing you right across: teaching, baking, manners, accountability, cleanliness and efficiency. Can she deliver all that? I did not need more than 15 minutes reading, scanning, and looking around to answer the question positively without hesitation.
Since Shuna is a professionally trained chef, and from her writing I understand she went through some pretty rough training, she knows what it means to aspire to be your best and people will appreciate it. I believe we all do. She belongs to a group called “The Bakers Dozen” where great chefs sharing ideas, experiences, know-hows and more. So when you visit “EGGBEATER” you know that any recipe that you will try to recreate in your own kitchen has been through the ringers. It has been tested and re-tested, polished and perfected. Visiting her blog will give you multiple benefits, but baking one of her recipes will ignite your desire to bake more.
pastry pal
Although Irina’s blog is not updated (last post dated March 20th, my anniversary date), but I must allow an exception for her, because she broke her ankle and most likely she is in pain; or just simply unhappy, which takes away your inspiration for teaching how to bake. I have feeling dough, that she will back soon and you will be tempted to visit the site often.
She has plenty of dessert recipes with the most detailed step-by-step instructions along with photographs. She even posted errors in baking, (like an over-baked sponge cake) just to show you that it is OK to have errors, it is actually good to have some mishaps from time-to-time to learn from, because everyone (including the so-called “experts”) will experience this problem at one time or another. Irina is a great instructor and beginners, as well as advanced bakers will not only like pastry pal, but will come back for more to absorb all the new information her blog provides.
BAKING OBSESSION
Although I was taken by the top post being about a dog cake at Vera’s blog but once I passed that first shock, I decided to give her a chance and it was the right thing to do. Actually, the chance is for you, the reader, because the goal of this post, and most other posts on my blog is to help you to find the best resources in this crowded field.
Vera, the owner of the blog, is a Russian native that lives in Vancouver, but her work, I am sure exist around the world. Vera is a quintessential artistic baker. Every single piece that I looked at the blog can be considered the perfect model of how that cake, cookie or tart/pie should look like, if done correctly. I understand now why the name “BAKING OBSESSION.”
She bakes her creations as if she just discovered the joy of baking. Although, she is concerned about her writing in the English language, through her baking we understand everything she means to convey. She writes to teach, to guide, and mostly to enjoy baking. I have a feeling she is creating a happy group of obsessed bakers.
toasty biscuit (previously known as Butter, Sugar and Flour)
When I landed on Linda Nguyen blog, the first thing I said: “Wow! That photograph of ice cream conveys a million words (mostly it says: try me, taste me, enjoy me). Then, as usual, I want to know about the blogger, so I moved to the About page and got this great smile of a very young baker. Her enthusiasm is just oozing out of her personality, as well as from her baking creations.
Her original blog was named aptly as butter, sugar, and four, three of the main ingredients in baking. I would like to see her providing more details about the recipes, or resources, but her creations appear to be mouth-watering and we could certainly pickup some new tricks by visiting toasty biscuit often.
A do not want to overlook a very important aspects of this post – your opinion. Please feel free to provide them in the comments section.
I appreciate your taking time to visit my blog and please remember that I welcome recommendations for the next collection of “tops”. This topic is expandable without limits.