Top 10 Food Blogs for Desserts
10. Honey & Jam
The Story
Hannah Queen is a young Christian baker and photographer who lives among the beautiful mountain ranges in North Georgia. Some of her most favorite things in life are the simple ones: fresh ingredients, flowers, tea with honey, folk and bluegrass music, trips to the farmers’ market and early mornings. She’s very passionate about what she does – i.e. cooking and taking pictures, both of food as well as of all the other beautiful things she sees around her. Her favorite foods include bread, brownies, roasted sweet potatoes, and roasted chicken.
The Blog
It took Hannah more than a month to figure out a name for her blog, as she’d promised herself she’d never start one without a name she loved. That happened in November 2008, as she found herself simply drinking tea with honey and eating jam on toast. She had a eureka! kind of moment and hasn’t looked back since. Her blog has also come a long way since five years ago, as she’s been featured in Saveur, The New York Times, Fork Magazine, on Chow.com, on The Huffington Post and in plenty of other places. Like many other culinary bloggers, she also takes pictures with a Canon 5D Mark II and shops for props at Ikea, Anthropologie, and on Etsy.
Blog Metrics
PR – 5/10
DA – 57
Alexa Rank – 456,711
Fans & Followers – You can shop for Hannah’s products on Etsy and check out more of her photography on Flickr; alternatively, you can simply join in the ranks of her 6.3k Twitter followers or 7.4k Facebook fans
Foodie Philosophy
“I’m the happiest when I’m in the kitchen, creating something tasty, and when I’m behind my camera, taking pictures of everything I see.”
For Hannah it’s all about mixing creativity with her soft spot for the simple things in life, which bring her so much joy. That’s why her best recipes and photos are the simple ones – simple, yet indelibly mouth-watering to the very last morsel. Check out the photos below and you’ll see what we mean.
Signature Recipes
9. Top with Cinnamon
The Story
Izy Hossack is British and she spends most of her time cramming for her upcoming A-levels. That’s right: this amazing baking blog is the work of a single 17 year-old, who says she’s “a complete computer and chemistry nerd”. She’s also passionate about crafts and fashion and has been baking ever since she was a very young kid. She credits the “long line of women who bake” in her family for her passion and says she has been especially influenced by her mother, who is Italian-American.
The Blog
It’s almost impossible to believe that this blog, with its sleek, friendly design, well indexed recipes, videos, and food photography courses was started by a girl who was only 15 at the time. The blog made its debut in July 2011, when Izy decided she wanted to document all her achievements in the kitchen. The blog is mostly focused on recipes and food photography, but Izy also occasionally gives her readers a glimpse into her life as a full-time student + a couple of funny stories which allow the audience to get to know her better. She uses a Canon 5D Mark III, with the classical 50mm f/1.8 lens for photos. The young blog of this young baking genius has already received some massive attention, including a short-list nod at the 4th annual Best Food Blog awards from Saveur.
Blog Metrics
PR – 4/10
DA – 51
Alexa Rank – 182,006
Fans & Followers – Izy has got over 17k followers on Pinterest, where she curates a board dedicated to her blog. She also more than 10k followers on Instagram and 4.5k fans on Facebook.
Foodie Philosophy
“I come from a long line of women who bake and my baking is particularly influenced by my amazing Italian-American mum.”
Izy credits her lineage and heritage for her skills and while we’re not trying to dispute the truth behind these facts, we tend to believe that she’s going to keep growing and developing to a level of talent never before seen. We are in awe of what this kid can do – don’t take our word for it, check out some of her creations below!
Signature Recipes
8. Butter me up, Brooklyn!
The Story
Lillie is the twenty-something year old girl behind butter me up, Brooklyn, who actually hails from Seattle. She only moved to New York in 2004 and has harbored a love/hate relationship with the city since – yet she has no idea why it took her until 2010 to move to Brooklyn. In her own words, “Brooklyn is filled with awesomeness”. Among the things she loves, she readily counts anything made with butter, bourbon (which is heavily featured in her dessert recipes, from cake to ice cream to marshmallows), plus leggings. She lives in her apartment, which means she doesn’t own a Kitchen Aid mixer, a drawer, or a counter large enough to accommodate a rolling pin. “Yet, somehow baked goods and other kitchen treats make it out alive to butter y’all up.”
The Blog
butter me up, Brooklyn, is all about being young in the big city, while also nurturing a passion for sweets, baking, and anything else dessert-related. The recipes manage to stay trendy and topical, but also healthful and practical for the most part. They can be browsed by seasonality and some of them have interchangeable ingredients – check out the ‘Any Summer Fruit Pie’ recipe, for instance. There are some must-have ingredients of the moment on the list (such as funfetti), but also dedicated staples (yes, we’re looking at you, bourbon). You’ll find exotic favorites, such as clafoutis there, but you will not miss out on any classics, such as muffins, cobblers, or cheesecake – this is a New York-based blog after all!
Blog Metrics
PR – 4/10
DA – 40
Alexa Rank – 1,700,457
Fans & Followers – You can find butter me up, Brooklyn on all the major social networks, i.e. Facebook (1.3k fans), Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest (224 followers), and Google+
Foodie Philosophy
“Baking makes friends.”
Simple, right? Simple and also true, since Lillie’s blog features such an impressive amount of simple desserts and party treats that it’s impossible not to think of her as constantly surrounded by friends, ready to dig into her awesome baked goods. Check out some of our favorites below!
Signature Recipes
7. Poires au chocolat
The Story
Emma is a British cutie – and a smartie, too. She’s got a degree in English Language and Literature, awarded to her by Oxford University in 2011, with a focus in medieval literature. She’s 24 now and still loves to cook as much as she did in 2009, when she first started her blog. She hails from rural Devon, in South West England, but has also spent significant amounts of time with her mother, who lives in the Swiss Alps.
The Blog
The inspiration for the blog came from Emma’s holidays away from uni, when she felt very happy to be back in a proper kitchen, cooking (she wasn’t allowed to cook during the first term ). After majoring in literature, she took a six month course in patisserie at one of London’s top restaurants, Le Cordon Bleu. The name of the blog is derived from one of the very first deserts she ever felt she’d nailed: the pear and chocolate loaf cake, back in 2009. Another source of inspiration is the childhood dessert she’d enjoy with her mother – freshly chopped pears, eaten with melted chocolate on top. Her recipes are inspired from her grandmother’s cook books, as well as by her very close-knit relationship with her mother. The blog is ad-free, since Emma wants to keep it all about recipes and does not accept paid endorsement offers. She takes sourcing her recipes very seriously since, as she says, she is a researcher at heart. For photos, she uses a Canon 5D Mark II and sometimes accompanies her posts with black and white photographs, which she finds beautiful in terms of lighting and textures.
Blog Metrics
PR – 4/10
DA – 46
Alexa Rank – 1,284,702
Fans & Followers – You can join the rest of the 2k followers Emma’s got on Twitter, or become her fan on Facebook, where she already has some 3.2k more
Foodie Philosophy
“Sharing food is one of my favourite things to do. I love creating something with my hands and seeing it put a smile on someone’s face. Giving pleasure, comfort, joy. I like sharing recipes too, for exactly the same reasons.”
It’s a simple philosophy, but one which goes really well with Emma’s recipes. They are both simple and sophisticated, and best enjoyed in a group. Her writing style is all about enjoying the process and putting your heart into it, as is this never fails to produce spectacular results in the kitchen.
Signature Recipes
6. Joe Pastry
The Story
Joe is married to Jo and they live in Kentucky. And that’s kind of where the regular aspect of this story ends, for most of the other things about Joe’s life are extraordinary. This Chicago native has been working in the food industry since he was 16 and first took on a job as a line cook. He kept soldiering on in food service throughout high school and college, but the low pay eventually drove him toward marketing. He has dedicated the past two decades of his career to retail, wholesale food, and branding, and has worked with small organic farms, street vendors, but also major corporations like McDonald’s and Cargill. In the meantime, he was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma in 2001, which led him to start practicing t’ai chi and eating macrobiotically. He took on a job with a pastry shop in Chicago that same year and has since been in remission. He then moved to Kentucky, tried (and failed) at opening a small baking business, but held on to his passion, as well as to his rural lifestyle.
The Blog
If you’re into some of the simpler delights of baking pastry and desserts, then Joe Pastry is the perfect place to start. Every recipe on the blog is detailed, finely illustrated with pictures of all the stages of cooking, and often accompanied by a brief history of the recipe itself, or of the main ingredient. And the themes covered are also quite topical: from macarons to that increasingly popular Thanksgiving dessert, the sweet potato pie. There are plenty of tutorials on the website to keep everyone happy and do not fall into the trap of believing that it’s all easy-peasy. You do have access to some essential baking and pastry info, but Joe also tackles some of the more complex dessert recipes out there, such as crème brûléle, canneles, or floating islands.
Blog Metrics
PR – 5/10
DA – 45
Alexa Rank – 469,188
Fans & Followers – Joe has got over 1,300 followers on Twitter, as well as a similar number of fans on Facebook
Foodie Philosophy
“A guy who believes that if a man feels like whipping up a nice almond cocoa genoise or a few madeleines, well… he should be able to. And if he feels like talking a little science or history along the way… well, what harm does that do anyone?”
It might be surprising for many to find out that Joe is actually a guy, given the incredible amount of detail provided in all the recipes, as well as the fact that most of them are accompanied by bites of history. However, that’s possibly the most refreshing thing about this blog – it’s written from the perspective of a male, which adds a concise and clear-cut style to it, lending it its unique voice and vision on the food blog scene.
Signature Recipes
