I’m keeping myself warm and cozy in this snowy day while waiting for the 2016 to end. I have my favorite music playing, while I am having my tea and few sweet treats on the side. Year end is a normal time for me to reflect and think what happened the entire year that is memorable to me. This year, its my blog. I started my blog April 2016, it was only 8 months ago but it feels like I had been doing it for years. There are still so many recipes that I would like to try to share with you, so many ideas I want to start and introduce in my blog. Starting my blog was the best thing that I did this year. I cannot take full credit though because this could not be possible if not because of my friends who encouraged me to do this. I never knew how much I love doing this until I actually started doing it. My blog reflects my passion for a lot of things. My love for food, my passion for food preparation and decoration and most especially, food photography. Making one entry in my blog takes a lot of time, but for me, it’s all worth it.

To tell you the truth, blogging is not an easy thing to do, but if you love doing it, it makes it a lot easier and fun. In case you are wondering what happens behind the scenes, let me share it with you. These are what I have to go through just to create a single blog entry. Let’s get started!

Menu for today

Sometimes thinking what to bake drives me crazy, there’s so many items in my wish list that deciding which one to make first is sometimes difficult. I always remind myself to take it one day at a time, although I have to admit there were days when I bake 2-3 items in one day. Yes, those were my crazy happy days and I loved it! Seeing my kitchen counter top filled with assortment of desserts were always a nice sight for me to see. The items I choose to bake depends on my cravings and sometimes depends on the occasion too.  I have regular days baking where I bake anything I like without a theme, and there were those days where I have a theme for the items I baked. Holiday season is one of my favorite, it’s the season for cookie overload! I like the idea of making homemade goodies for gift giving, it felt more personalize. Then there’s also occasion like Easter, Valentines Day, St Patrick’s Day and Birthdays that calls for special treat.

Recipes, Recipes 

There are thousands of recipes online to choose from, sometimes I use them as is but from time to time I like making my own recipes so that I can customize it to my preference. I do my research whenever I am baking regardless if it is a new recipe idea or a classic one that I had been doing a long time a go. I like learning new techniques and what better way to learn it but from those people who have already done it. I like reading blog post in Pinterest but recipe videos are always my preference. Reading is good, but there’s nothing like seeing someone actually making it.

Let’s shop!

There are recipes that are simple and basic and would not really require for me to go out to buy the ingredients, those recipe I love so much! The likes of brownies and cookies are one of those treats and something that I can bake in a spur of a moment. But it’s not always like that, so when the recipe calls for something beyond the basic ingredients, it’s time to pay the grocery a visit which for me is a fun thing to do. Shopping time!

Let’s get started  

Let’s bake! Weekdays or weekends, it doesn’t matter because I often find a time to squeeze it in my schedule. I guess that’s how it is when you like something, you will find an excuse to do it, right? I bake mostly the simple and easy recipe during the weekday, and I reserve the complex one for weekends. One rule I have when it comes to baking is  “Never bake when in a hurry”, specially the complex recipes. You can easily screw things up even the most simple recipes because you just want to get it over with. Baking requires paying attention to details, even the smallest one. It is not like cooking where you can still adjust it even though it’s been cooked, let’s just say it’s more challenging to salvage a a failed baked products than to salvage a failed cooked dish. So plan ahead so you will a happy ending. Estimate the time that you have, and choose the recipe that fits that time. There are a lot of recipes out there to choose from, there are even no bake easy desserts, just plan ahead. Ok?

Take two? Oh No!

I have my own share of failed recipes, believe me. Baking could be tricky, sometimes even if you follow exactly the instructions, it just doesn’t look like what you expected and hoped it to be. A sunken cake, a flat cookie, a dry bread, hard muffins, I’ve been through them all. There are a lot of factors that could contribute to this, it’s not just following the ingredients measurement, or recipe instructions. Sometimes, it has to do with the humidity in your kitchen, age of your ingredients or the technique used. So don’t pull your hair out if you don’t get it right the first time, try again. Don’t give up, baking is a learning process and even the most experience bakers had bad days too.

Photo Shoot

The cake is out of the oven, but it doesn’t stop there as we are not done yet. Taking photograph could sometimes take as much time as baking the actual product. It’s not just snapping the photo, there’s props to prepare, table to set, and finding the right time to do it all. I always prefer shooting during the day where there’s natural sunlight but there were times that I couldn’t always do that and that is were artificial lighting comes in when I shoot at night. Now the photos, 1 or 2? Not really, hundreds of shots in one recipe, yes that many. I took all possible angle, I moved the props around and sometimes I even shoot in different area to see which looks better. I wouldn’t be able to shoot those beautiful photos if not with the help of my Nikon D5600 DSLR camera.

Photo Selection

Out of hundreds of photos, only few will make it to the blog for publishing. It may sound like a waste taking all those photos and using only few, but it’s actually not. Taking a lot photos gave me the chance to play around the settings to see which will come out best, and besides I really enjoy doing it. The selection will be a mix of different angle shots, like top shot, whole shot, side shot and bite shots and for some the are complex a step by step shot. At the end of the skimming process, only 5-10 photos will make it to the blog, sometime more if it is a complex recipe.

Post Editing

I like keeping it short and simple as possible, although I don’t compromise details when needed. Some people do not have the time to read the entire post and so I like to have a structured writing where I used headings to highlights the point I’m trying to make for each section. Sometimes I tell my personal story and experience and sometimes I focus more on the recipe itself and the process on how to make it. I used photos in between paragraph before going to the ingredients and steps. Sometimes, I also add section for tips and suggestions as this comes handy for recipes that are quite challenging and requires more attention to details.

Video Editing

Not all of my recipe have video, but those that have will definitely be edited as well. I also do all the edit for my videos. Depending on how simple or complex the recipe I shoot, video editing could take about 1/2 a day if the videos are shoot using my DSLR. If I used my iPhone to shoot the video, editing could be as fast as 1 hr or less. There are pros and cons in using DSLR and iPhone when it comes to video shoot for food. My choice always depends on how much time I have to edit the video.

 From Draft to Published!

Depending on the complexity of  the recipe, it could take several revisions before I finally decide to publish it. On the average I will have 3-4 reviews before I am happy with it and sometimes even more. I would either published it manually on the spot or I will have it queued in the scheduler which is a very convenient functionality of wordpress.

Please Share

I’ve setup my post in such a way that is it automatically shared in different platforms like WordPress, Facebook, Tweeter, Google Plus and Tumbler.

It’s not as simple as 1,2,3. Although it is time-consuming, I wouldn’t want to skip any of these step. Every one of these steps are what makes my blog especial to me. At the end of the day, this is what makes me feel accomplished and happy. I am happy to be able to share my creations with you , and most of all, I am happy to share the foods I make with my friends.

I am looking forward to sharing more of my creations with you in the coming years. I hope you will continue to support and join my in my delicious journey of creating food.

Thank You for visiting my website. Please don’t forget to click the “Like” button below if you like this recipe. Lastly, did you know that I have a YouTube Channel? Please support my channel by clicking on the “Subscribe” button in my video and the “Bell” icon to get notification of new videos.

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