294: Bake Offs – Producing a Different Kind of Recipe Content for a Food Blog with Erika Kwee

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Alexa here. And welcome to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. We are so excited that you decided to tune in today, and that's because this episode is a good one. It's an interview with food blogger Erica Kuei from the Pancake Princess. And while she creates some awesome recipe content on her blog, her most popular content is actually a series on her blog that she calls Bake Offs. And in these Bake Offs, she tries multiple recipes of the same food from around the Internet. She breaks them down. What makes them similar, what makes them different. She has taste testers taste them, and she analyzes all of that information to come up with different recommendations. So her favorites ones that are really good if you have certain ingredients on hand, and so much more, they are such high quality posts. And I think it's just one of those things that's so interesting because, you know, food bloggers tip typically create recipes. That's what we do. That is the product that we're producing. But in Erica's case, she's finding a lot of success producing content around analyzing other people's content, which I think is really, really fascinating. She talks all about this Bake off series in this episode, and she talks about her formula for putting the post together, how she works with sponsors on the post, how she's incorporated video and so much more. It's a great episode. And actually it's a little bit different than some of our more recent episodes because I'm the one interviewing Erica, so my interviewing muscle is not one that I flex often. But I'm really excited to show it off today. So without any further ado, let's dive in. Erica, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

We are so excited that you're here. I actually got this idea to interview you, actually, because I was trying to cure my cookie cravings. I went on a search for, like, vegan cookie recipes, and I came across your Bake off post, and I was already familiar with you. I follow you on Instagram, and I was like, oh, my goodness, why have I not thought of having her on the podcast? So you reached out, and I'm just so excited to be able to talk to you today.

Oh, my gosh, that's great. I am so excited to talk to you.

So, like I mentioned, you have a Bake off series on your blog, and that's kind of where we're going to focus the majority of our conversation. But I think I kind of want to start by taking a step back and just talking about the story of your blog. The Pancake Princess. Where you got the idea when you started and why you started.

Oh, man. I always feel so silly explaining the name of my blog, but it basically came about my senior year of college. I had this good friend named Kunle, and he loved to work out. We were basically opposites because he loved to weightlift, I loved to do cardio, he loved to eat meat and no vegetables. And I was basically vegetarian, but we both loved sugar, so we were like, hey, let's start a blog. And we obviously love alliteration. And we were like, let's call it the Pancake Princess and the Protein Prince. And you'll blog about meat recipes and working out, and then I'll blog about vegetarian recipes and we'll both blog about dessert. So that's how it started. Kunle, I think, wrote one blog post and then dropped off and was like, it's all. So I just kept the name the Pancake Princess. And from there, I mean, it was like a lot of pancake recipes in the beginning. And then once I graduated from college, I think that's when it really ramped up because I just found myself with so much time after work, and it was like, I don't have to study. It's just like a 9 to 5. What do I do with all my spare time? So it was really a lot of, like, experimenting with cooking and baking. And I was reading tons of food blogs. Like, I love Pinch of Yum. Been following Lindsey for years and just a bunch of other blogs. I think that kind of, like, inspired me to continue trying to improve my photography and develop recipes. And so, yeah, it's just kind of been a slow burn for the past almost seven, eight years.

Isn't that crazy to think back and be like, wow, I can't believe this has been a thing for longer than I was in college or I started my blog my senior year of college, too. And it was one of those things where I looked back just the other day and I was like, wow, that was a really long time ago. Like, I've been doing this for a really long time. And that's so cool that you've been able to keep it up and just really, you know, fall into the name that you created back in the day.

Thanks.

Yeah, so that's a great introduction. I think what I wanted to focus mostly on today because I think it's so unique. And it's one of those things that I think a lot of food bloggers, they fall into this rhythm of just, like, producing new recipes. So publishing a new recipe Developing new recipes and just doing that over and over and over. And that's the sole content that they produce. And that's fine, that's great. But some people like to switch it up and offer their readers something a little bit unique. And I think your Bake off series is one of those just super unique things and you have it down to such a great formula. So I'd love to focus on that for a little bit. So can you give us just a quick intro about what your Bake off series is and when you started those kinds of posts specifically?

Sure. So a Bake off is basically when I test anywhere from like 9, I've done up to 16, but typically 9 to 12 recipes all of the same type. So it could be like snickerdoodles or cinnamon rolls or banana bread. And I bake everything in one day. And then I used pre Covid used to have like friends come over and everyone would sample all of the different baked goods that I had made. Now have become my.

Oh, I bet you you are a best friend of many, many people.

I do feel very just happy to have all my friends under one roof. Oh my God, it was so fun back in the day. But nowadays people will just swing by with like, they'll bring a muffin tin or a Tupperware and I put the samples in their container for them to take home and like taste and they basically judge each baked good on a scale of 1 to 10. And then we analyze all the data and then we try to kind of report out which was the most like crowd pleasing baked good. And then kind of talk about all of the other ones and just compare to see like the quote unquote best or top rated recipe might not be your ideal recipe. Like if you like a chewy cookie and the top one is crispy, like it might not be your ideal. So I try not to say like it's the best recipe, but you know, there's good and bad things about most recipes. So that's how a Bake off works. And it basically started in 2017. My friend Skylar was visiting me for my birthday and he actually got stranded in Houston because Hurricane Harvey came through. And so he was supposed to stay a Friday through Monday. And then all flights were just being canceled. It was just crazy. We were just kind of cooped up in our house all week. And by the end we were like, you know, like back in the day we were talking about this project of like trying to bake like a dozen different chocolate chip cookie recipes from the Internet. To, like, find which one is the best. Like, should we just do that? And so we ended up doing it just that Saturday before he left, and we invited, like, all our friends over, and that was kind of like the very first Bake off. And it was so fun that I just wanted to keep doing it. So that's kind of how it started.

I love that. That is so cool. Just like a fun idea with a friend. And it turned into just like this really awesome blog series that, I mean, is super popular. Like, when I look at your Instagram account and like when you post about these bake Offs and you post all of these super thorough, like, Instagram stories about each recipe, just I feel like you get a lot of engagement on them too. So I think that's awesome that you're able to just grow it from this, you know, idea with friends, having fun with friends to this awesome blog content. That's so cool.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, I really. I can't say enough good things about the people. It feels weird to call them my followers, but just everyone gets so excited about them. And I'm like, thank you for sharing my same enthusiasm for this totally dorky and nerdy project because, like, I'm very passionate about it and it's just so heartwarming to see that other people are as well.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. For sure. Well, and that's. It's just so fun, like when you test a recipe or test a certain food and like, a recipe that I've made is like, on your list, and I'm like, yeah, that recipe is really good. It's just really cool to see it up against some of the other ones on the Internet because there are so many different kinds of chocolate chip cookie recipes, zucchini bed recipes, most recently loft house cookie recipes, which is like, total guilty pleasure of mine. I was so excited to see that you did those. I love those. And it's just so neat to see those recipes stacked up one against another and to see what makes them different and what makes them so similar. So while you were kind of describing the bake Offs, you use words like analyze and report and things like dorky or nerdy, which I thought was really interesting because your Bake Offs are really science based. And I think that might come mainly from just the fact that baking is such a science based thing. But I'm curious if you have a food science background or what got you interested in more of the analyzing way of consuming recipes.

Oh, that's such a good question. I wish I had a food science background, because oftentimes when I'm writing my blog post, I'm having to Google and be like, is baking soda acidic or basic? Again, I can't remember because I think there are all of these elements that affect recipes. And I have been a home baker all my life. So it's mostly trial and error and reading what other bloggers and food scientists are saying and me trying to piece together why a certain recipe might have been better than another. Because I really just have no official food or chef training, unfortunately. But I think I did get my mba. I was actually an English major in college, and then I went back to business school to try to get some more marketable skills. And I think that I've always been very analytical and kind of spreadsheet oriented. I just love organizing and categorizing things. And so even though the bake offs didn't start intentionally because I wanted to kind of like categorize the Internet, looking back, I think it was kind of a natural progression for me because I still encounter this to this day where I'm like, okay, I want to make graham crackers for this camping trip that I'm going on. But like, which is the best recipe? There are literally thousands on Pinterest, on Google, and I would love for someone to just tell me which one is the best. So I think it's just that natural instinct, I guess, of me wanting to just be efficient and like, have a, like more data driven way to say, you know, this recipe is better and here's why.

Yeah, and I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, like, there are so many resources that go into, like if I'm a consumer or reader of a blog and I'm like, hey, I'm deciding to make this recipe. Like, I'm investing time, I'm investing money for ingredients. So you want it to turn out right. So it's cool that we have a resource like your bake offs to kind of see, you know, which, which recipe is the most worth it. And like you said, like, people like recipes for different reasons. So it's really cool that you document that too. So, like, if somebody's ideal cookie is really chewy with like a crisp edge, then maybe this recipe is the best for them. But then if they're more cakey recipe or cakey cookie fan, then this recipe might be better. So it's really cool that you're able to compare apples to apples, I'd say in these bake offs for sure. And just the fact that you said that you don't have any formal recipe training. I think that's really interesting. We actually did a poll of our Food Blogger Pro members not too long ago for a course that we're releasing soon. And almost 70% of our food Blogger Pro members, and those are people who are working on starting and growing their own blogs, they don't have any recipe training, which I think is so unique. Yeah. So it just goes to show that you absolutely do not need that in order to just create content that people are just like, I guess, pun intended, eating up, you know. So I'm curious if you could kind of break down the formula for these posts. Because if you go on your site and you click the little Bake Offs tab at the top and you look at them, you'll see that the posts are pretty standardized, I'd say. So it looks like you have some sort of like, formula or I guess, pun intended again, recipe for these posts. So I'm curious how you go ahead and like choose the topics and the different recipes. Like you said, hundreds, thousands, millions of recipes online. How do you choose the 9 to 12 to 16 that you actually use in a bake Off? How do you test? I'm just curious how you've created that really replicable. Replicable. That's hard to say. Replicable formula for these posts.

Yeah, I think that choosing the recipes is actually the most time consuming part. Or at least, I mean, baking takes almost all day, but it is only a matter of. Yeah, but the baking part is fun. The choosing the recipes is honestly agonizing for me because I just, I want to test all the recipes. Like, I think 9 to 12 sounds like a lot when you think about how much you're baking in one day. But it's such a small sample of the Internet. So I always am like, should I do 16 this time? But you always worry about taste or fatigue because, like after a certain point everything starts to taste the same. So I try to limit it. But basically the way I usually approach each bake off is I start by picking what I'm going to do next. For example, carrot cake. And I will Google carrot cake and start scraping the most popular recipes off of Google. But the best source I feel like that I have is actually from Instagram. So I'll put out a call and say like, hey, do you have any carrot cake recipes that you love and would love to see in a bake off or just want to see tested? And it's really helpful there to see the themes that keep popping up. Like if everyone is recommending Brave Tarts Carrot cake, for example. I know that it's a super popular one that I should probably test and so I kind of use that as one measure. And then I also put all of these recipes into a spreadsheet and I try to organize depends on the recipe, but it could be by fat. So like maybe all of these butter based carrot cakes versus butter and oil based carrot cakes versus only oil based or like oil plus brown sugar. However, the recipes just kind of shake out in terms of being distinctive. And then from there I try to pick a couple recipes from each category. So might be like two oil based, two butter based, etc. Yeah. And then from there I think, I mean, I just try to choose a representative sample that you know, if one I try to find a benchmark recipe because a lot of recipes are kind of like imitating or adapting from each other. So if there's one kind of standard recipe that it seems like a lot of people are replicating. Always love to have one of those. Always love to have one. If there's a weird ingredient or method, like I want to melt the baking soda in buttermilk before you add it to the batter, something weird like that, I should throw one of those in there to see if the technique makes a difference. But yeah, that's pretty much how I select the recipes. And then it's just a matter of preparing for the baking, doing all of that, handing out the samples. So yeah, sorry, did I forget the second part of your question?

No, I asked like 15 questions all at once. So I apologize for that, I guess. Yeah, so I guess the second part of that was how do you test the recipes? So like, is there, I know you mentioned that people rate them on a 1 through 10 scale. Do they like write down their responses or their thoughts somewhere and then get them all to you? And then how do you kind of put that all together?

Oh my gosh. Let me tell you, back in the day, in the early, early days, everyone was writing down their scores on a piece of paper and I would transcribe that piece of paper into I guess an Excel sheet. It took so long. So it didn't take me long to electron. What am I trying to say? Like make that electronic. So now people fill out a Google form and so there will be typically a question on like, how would you rate the flavor from 1 to 10, how would you rate the texture from 1 to 10, how would YOU rate like the thing, the cookie overall from 1 to 10? Or when we did like the Le Ven cookie Bake off, for example, you would rate, like, how close is this copycat recipe to the original? So from there it's pretty easy to just take that data and then pop it into tableau where excel and just say, okay, like, the top ranked cake or cookie is like X cake based on this question's rankings.

That is so cool. Yeah, I love that. And like, such an easy way to make it so much easier to like, comb through that data because it is like, how many taste testers did you say you have typically?

Gosh, it could be anywhere from like 24, 25 to like 45.

Oh my goodness. You must be, like, just covered in flour at the end of each Bake off day. That is so amazing. Oh, my goodness. I, yeah, I could not imagine going through all of that data just like, just by them writing it down. So I could imagine how thankful you are for those Google forms. That's great. Could you walk us through? Oh, go ahead.

What? Go point. Go for it.

I was just gonna say could you walk us through, like, the post itself because I know you have, like, different headings and you kind of digest each or I guess you kind of pick apart each recipe. How did you go about, like, figuring out the way, the ideal way to like, lay out that content?

Yeah, that's a great question that I'm still exploring because I feel like these posts are extremely long and I love the people who DM me and say, I just read every word of your post and I love it. But I know that the majority of people are not really looking to read an essay on which is the best carrot cake on the Internet. So I am trying to think of ways to streamline it and make it a little more digestible if you just want to kind of glance through it. But I think when I first designed those posts, I was thinking kind of in terms of, is it called like a science report where you kind of have your hypotheses and your methodology and like, your analysis? Yeah.

Gosh, take me back to bio. Yeah.

So, I mean, I always try to give a little bit of an intro about, like, why I chose the Bake off and then tell people what ingredients I use. Because, like, the protein content in flour could really matter, for example. So I want people to know, like, if they want to try to replicate my results. Like, here is exactly what I used. And then I try to put a little section on the methodology in terms of, like, did I bake everything the same day? Yes. Like, here are the types of pans that I used. And here's what it was lined with because like parchment paper versus Silpat can matter for sure. Yeah. And then I try to post the results and do a little bit of an overview on like why I think the results shook out the way they did and then section on the factors that I think affected the Bake Off. So for example, in the chocolate cake Bake off, we really found that a combination of butter and oil as the fat made for the best texture because butter gets that great flavor and then oil gets you a really soft texture. And then it really just from there is a deep dive into each recipe where I try to give a fair overview of each recipe and point out like where I might have gone wrong in the recipe or like, you know, any weird like this takes forever to make or like this requires an overnight rest or like, here's why people loved it and didn't love it and like insert some taster commentary in there because my tasters are hilarious. They just love to give me anything from very serious comments to very sassy comments. So I think there's definitely a good balance, like on the whole when you look at them. And then at the very end, this is where I try to be like too long didn't read. Like, here's like the highlights of if you want to make the least effort but highest payoff cake or like the most moist cake, blah blah blah.

That's like one of my favorite parts right there because it is super digestible. Like I'm on your brownie post right now and you have a heading, best brownie recipes to try. And you have, you know, if you only have cocoa powder, some brownie recipes have cocoa powder and melted chocolate, but you give two recommendations. Like, if you only have cocoa powder, these are the recipes for you. If you only have one hour, here are the other recipes that you might want to try. If you want a fancy one, a fudgy one. So like, you're not saying like, oh, this is the only brownie recipe that you want to try. You say, yeah, this is probably our favorite out of the bunch we tried. But like, if you only have certain ingredients on hand, these are really awesome recipes to try too. So I really, really love that. That's typically what I scroll down to first just to kind of see the breakdown and then I'll go ahead and read the rest of the post. But I think that right there is so helpful and valuable.

Oh, that's great to know. I love hearing that.

Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I noticed too, I mean, if you again, just go on to the Bake Offs section of your blog and you start to scroll through. There's like, you have the pictures down to a science. Like, they all look very, very similar. There's like, you know, the nine recipes or whatever that you're testing. So the nine cookies with handwritten labels below hand and like a crinkly. Is that parchment paper below it? Do you have any thoughts or reasonings behind why you wanted to kind of standardize the pictures for these?

Oh, I guess it was just a matter of branding. So I wanted people to be able to see it and think like, oh, that's a Bake off from the Pancake Princess. I do definitely acknowledge that maybe handwritten labels are not the best way because I feel like that you kind of lose it in a lot of photos. Like, it's hard to see. But yeah, that's just kind of the style that I've developed over the past couple years.

Oh, for sure. And I think that's like, I think the handwritten labels are great because like you said, as soon as I see, you know, six cookies or nine cookies cookies on a crinkled background with handwritten labels, I absolutely know it's you. And I jump over to your blog to go read about it. Especially when they are the dark chocolate levain peanut butter cookies. Those looked amazing. I was so pumped that you did that.

So good.

So one of the things I find really interesting about these posts is that they're really great examples of posts that aren't necessarily just recipe development posts that you can get sponsored. So your most recent Bake off post, the Loft House. The Loft House cookie post was sponsored. So have you. Can you talk a little bit about that process and how you kind of pitch a different recipe series idea to a sponsor?

Sure. So I had actually been hoping to get a Bake off sponsored. I've been thinking about it for a while and I was just thinking, like, what a great opportunity for me to kind of partner with a brand, to elevate their brand story with a Bake Off. Because there are products that I use in every single Bake off, like Land of Lakes Butter, Imperial Sugar. And a lot of people will come ask me, like, hey, how do you like using this flower versus this flower? Or like this product? What do you think of this? And I mean, honestly, half the time I'm like, I really have. I'm not like a food scientist or anything. So, like, I'm honored that you are asking for my opinion. But, like, as an enthusiastic home cook, like this is all I can tell you. But I mean, I think it's great that people kind of see that there's some baking authority here, maybe just from the sheer volume that I'm baking. And so I think when I approached Imperial Sugar, the way I tried to frame it was, you know, these bake offs are like my highest performing posts. They're very popular. People are coming to read about these great recipes. And so I think it would be a great partnership for me to also talk about Imperial Sugar as it's like a super high quality, consistent product that I use all the time. So, like, why not? It just seemed like a great synergy and opportunity. So that is kind of how I pitched it to them and I was just thrilled that they were also into the idea. And we are partnering for a few posts and then we're going to monitor and see if we're going to continue the partnership. But overall, very happy with how it's going so far. That's just kind of how it came about.

That's awesome. And it's really interesting that these are your highest performing posts and I feel like they're acting as that cornerstone. Content of this is just a really awesome, well researched piece of content. Google, other search engines, readers all love a ton of information. I'll hand it to them in one beautiful package in a blog post like this. So that's really cool to see that your hard work on these are paying off in traffic and sponsored deals. That's really, really cool.

Thanks, Alexa. Yeah, I was very excited. Yeah.

And one of the things about that loft house, I spent a lot of time on this lofthouse post. I'm going to make lofthouse cookies this weekend, let's be honest. But one of the things I noticed was that you made a video for that that Bake off specific Glee. I'm not sure if you keep doing them or if you've done them before in the past too, but it was like such a high quality video with some of like those slow mo ingredient shots were just like very beautiful. So I'm curious if you could talk about your process for that. And more importantly, if you have to create or bake all of the recipes again. So once for photographing and taste testing and then another for video.

Oh my gosh, what a good question. The answer is no, I do not bake. When I thought about doing video, I was like, there is no way I could do it twice. So we had to kind of figure out a way around the Bake off schedule so that he could catch Me, like, right as I was done baking before people came to pick up samples. But yeah, so very excited to start the video series. And that was kind of born out of I started doing a day after tasting series on my stories. And so that was mainly because I would like try all the cookies the day of and put my own survey rankings. And I just didn't have the energy to do it all again and story it the same day. So I would do a day after tasting and people ended up liking that because I guess it's helpful to see does this cookie taste as good the next day because some definitely hold up better than others. And it just, it was a more success. Like I got more positive feedback on those stories than I did with almost any other story. And I was really shocked at the number of people who were like, I look forward to these stories every bake off or like, when are you posting? I can't wait to like watch or even. I love this one. Mom told me my kids love to watch you and they're asking when the cookie lady's gonna be back.

Oh my gosh, that's so sweet.

I know my heart. I was dying. But yeah. So I think I was surprised at how much interest those stories were getting despite the fact that I felt like I was really just rambling. So I was thinking, and I actually think this tip might have come from a food blogger pro podcast or something. But I know that embedding video into a blog post can help with SEO rankings. And so I was like, what if I tried to do the tasting videos in a YouTube format? So that way like A, you know, it would might boost the blog SEO rankings. But then B, it's a more like better long term way to house the tasting videos versus just like save to my highlights on Instagram. And C, it would open up to like a whole new YouTube audience, which definitely have not penetrated that at all. So that is how I decided to give it a try. And the first video was actually with the Le Ven chocolate peanut butter cookies. And I was just looking at how many videos there were of people trying copycat levain cookie recipes. And I was like, I feel like no one is doing a comparison of nine different cookies on YouTube, so hopefully this content will do well. So yeah, then I talked to my friend Michael Ma, who is a local videographer in Houston. Super talented. He's the only thing making me look good in these videos. I was very nervous to film myself because I just hate watching myself on camera. But his videography is absolutely incredible. So Very thrilled to be working with him. And yeah, I think that is basically how that process got started. And I'm gonna try to keep doing them for as long as I can and just see if I build any momentum on YouTube.

I think that's great. You know, one of the things about recipe videos is that they don't perform all that well on YouTube because they're so short. Like the hands and pants videos, I mean, so those, you know, the ones that are under a min you share on Instagram, they blow up on Instagram. Same with Facebook. But YouTube kind of is the place for longer form content. So anywhere from like 10 minutes up, like, anywhere like that. So I think that it's really smart to put together these videos. You already have all of the cookies or all of the cakes baked, so it's really cool to just turn on a video camera and talk about, you know, what people thought, what you thought, what makes the recipes different. I'm really excited to see more of that, actually. I always love watching, watching, like, taste Test videos on YouTube. It's like a guilty pleasure, I guess, of mine. So I think it's really, really cool that you started doing this. And they are so beautiful. Whoever's listening on the podcast, be sure to head over to our show notes for this episode and I'll have some links there for the videos because it's just. They're beautiful.

Oh, thank you so much.

Yeah. So I think we're getting probably to the end of this podcast episode, but I have some, like, kind of quick and easy, maybe not easy, actually, questions for you. You've done a lot of bake offs. What I'm looking here. Probably over. Oh, I should have counted before. Probably. I don't know. I'm probably over 20.

Ish. That sounds right.

Yeah. So do you have an absolute favorite of the ones that you've done? I'm seeing here? Vegetarian stuffing. Brownies. Brownies, part two, Pumpkin pie. So many different ones.

Oh, my gosh. It's so hard to say because after some of them, I felt like I absolutely never wanted to eat any of, like a banana bread loaf again.

I guess that's true.

And some of them were just such a pain in the butt to make that I was like, I am not even enjoying eating these.

Oh, my gosh.

But I think cinnamon rolls really stood out as a great one. That was really complex to schedule, but really satisfying to pull off and then also really fun to eat. And gosh, I have to say that the first chocolate chip cookie Bake Off, I Felt so sick after, and I think everyone did, too. Like, that amount of chocolate was just not great in the volume that we were eating. So I have to say, chocolate chip cookies are not my favorite. But let me think. Oh, the lemon bar Bake off and the lemon poppy seed muffin Bake Off. I actually loved that one. And I was surprised at how much I love just eating muffins. Like, that one was really fun.

Well, and yeah, and I remember you talked about the glaze being, like, a very important part of those recipes too, and I was just like, yes, yes, it is. Like, I love lemon poppy seed muffins. I think they're, like one of those unsung heroes of the dessert world, so. Totally agree with that. That's really cool. I could imagine, like, the pecan pie or any of the pies just being a bit of a process to pull off, for sure.

Oh, my gosh, yes. That pecan pie Bake Off. I was so exhausted after, and it was just like the blind baking of the pie crust and then like, the adding of. Oh, my gosh, it was just so much work. But yes, on the lemon poppy seed note, I am still on the hunt for, like, a super lemony muffin itself because that glaze is so key. But it's just, I think all of the flavor is basically in that glaze, and I want the flavor to come in the muffin, too. And we got kind of close in the Bake off, but I think my ideal muffin is still out there somewhere.

I get that for sure. Always in pursuit of the best muffin or the best whatever. And I guess, like, this series is a great answer to that. So even if you don't find, like, the ideal one in a certain Bake Off, I guess there's the opportunity for part two of the Lemon poppy Seed Bake off, eh?

Yes, definitely.

So I noticed that you like to plan your bake offs kind of seasonally. So, like, you know, pecan pie around Thanksgiving, Parker House rolls around Thanksgiving to gingerbread around Christmas. So are there any that you're planning within the next couple of weeks or months that you're really excited about?

So carrot cake is coming in time for Easter. And I personally am not a huge fan of carrot cake. And I know this is blasphemous, but I don't really like cream cheese frosting. But, oh, my gosh, I feel crazy saying that because everyone loves it and I like certain cream cheese frostings. Like, if there's some lemon in there, give it to me. Like, I like It a little more sugary than like cream cheesy. But so it has been so highly requested that I finally am like, I can't put this off any longer. I must give the people what they want. So I'm totally do that one just to like, see will I find my ideal carrot cake in this Bake Off? Like, it will actually be a good test for me. And then yeah, I'm excited and kind of scared because there are so many different, like pineapple and raisins and nuts. Like, people have very strong opinions on these things and I don't really. So I'm just kind of like, we'll see how the recipes shake out when we get there for sure. But yeah, I'm also. This is a long ways off, but I want to do a baked Mac and cheese bake off for Thanksgiving this year. So that will be an unusual savory one. But I'm very excited about that.

Oh my gosh, that will be fantastic. I know, like, gosh, Mac and cheese, there are just so many different ways that you can make it. Like between the different kind of noodles or the different kind of toppings, like, that's going to be a really cool one. I'm very pumped for that. And carrot cake, man. I. I'm a big carrot cake fan because I am a big cream cheese frosting fan. I think I like the frosting, to be honest, a little bit more than the actual cake. But I saw Claire Saffitz, she made this like giant. I think it was like a three tier, four tier carrot cake. So that might be one that.

Oh my gosh.

A recipe that my unit might need to add to the baker.

I actually watched her video and tried it and her frosting was so good. It was a brown butter cream cheese frosting and it was like, this is the key that I've been missing. I just need to put brown butter in it. It was so good.

There you go. Oh my gosh. That's actually a great idea. I forgot she did that. Yeah, for sure. I bet you. That was amazing. Man, you're getting me so excited about this now. So you said you have a lot of taste testers and that's great. They obviously take a little bit of each recipe. But first of all, do you have any leftovers? And second of all, what do you do with them? And I guess third of all, can I have some?

Oh, such a good question. I used to absolutely. Like when people would come over, I don't know, I guess I just couldn't distribute it as evenly. Because people were just taking what they wanted and I would have so many leftovers and thank God I could just take them to work. And even if I dropped it off in the kitchen at like 8am, like people would demolish everything by like 9am and it'd be like, don't you people have to work? Like, how are you going to work on the sugar high? But it was great. So nowadays when I can just hand out samples, I can kind of better estimate, like, okay, if 20 people are coming, I'm going to give each person a half cookie or like a whole cookie for the sample. But yes, I do tend to have a lot of leftovers. And luckily in Covid, my neighbors and I have all gotten to know each other. So usually I have enough willing neighbors to take leftovers that I can kind of pawn everything off on them. And yes, I would love to send you some leftovers. I would love to do. Thank you.

Yes, I am your girl when you have some carrot cake leftovers for sure. That is crazy. So I guess I didn't realize that you have a full time job too, along with running the Pancake Princess.

Yeah, I work as a product manager at hp, so that is my day job and I just scrape recipes in my free time.

Holy moly. Wow. That's incredible. So you've put in all of this effort for these giant, super well thought out, super well researched bake off posts with a full time job. How do you manage that? How do you balance the time?

Well, I mean, in Covid, I honestly have had so much time that it doesn't really feel like I need to juggle that much because I mean, I'm very lucky and that I don't have a lot of other constraints on my time like no kids, no pets. And so I guess I just put a lot of my free time that I would have spent like going out and socializing with friends into researching recipes. But I mean, I would say each post probably takes around 20 hours and like at least 8 hours of that is just like baking all in one day. So like with the rest of the researching spread out like an hour to each night, like sometimes I can MultiTask and watch TV at the same time. It doesn't feel like it's a super heavy load.

That's cool. That's really cool. I know people will have a lot of questions about that because there's a lot of us out there who are balancing full time jobs with blogs and with other responsibilities. So it's cool. Even just like working on it. A little bit each night is a really good tip. So I guess my last question for you because your Bake off series is so unique and it's just so different from like, the norm of what food bloggers like to publish typically. I'm curious if you have any advice for bloggers who kind of want to switch up the kind of content that they're publishing or producing on your blog or on their blogs. So how to find a new idea or how to kind of test the waters to see if your readers will like it. Do you have any advice? Hmm.

I guess the piece of advice that comes to mind is just if you have been sitting on an idea that you've been kind of dismissing or thinking like, like, I don't think anyone would be interested in that. To just explore it and just give it some attention and see, just try it out. Because what's the worst that could happen? Like, for this, we always thought it was a cool idea, but I didn't think that it would take off quite in the way that it did. So that's kind of generic advice, but I feel like there are a lot of things that you can do with the food blog outside of just the normal recipe development and people are interested in new content. So, yeah, I guess. I don't know if that's the most helpful, but that would be my advice.

No, I think that makes sense. I mean, it's like ideas come all the time too, and I think it's kind of easy to just kind of push them under the rug and be like, oh, I'm doing it this way. I've always done it this way. Like, these ideas can wait or I'm just not going to do them, but like, taking a chance and seeing and testing the waters. And it doesn't mean you need to stick with them, you know, full time or like, only post that kind of content. But if you're curious about switching it up, I think that's great advice for sure.

Awesome. Yeah, you put it much more eloquently than I do.

Well, yeah, this was such a great conversation. Erica, I'm so sorry, excited and honored to be able to talk to you. Like, seriously such a fan. If that wasn't abundantly clear throughout this interview. But if people want to connect with you and chat and see some of these bake offs, see what you're up to, where is the best place that people can connect?

So my Instagram is at the Pancake Princess. My blog is thepancakeprincess.com and my YouTube channel is I think you can just search Pancake Princess and I do have Facebook and Pinterest also Pancake Princess, some form of that on those platforms. But yeah. Alexa, thank you so much for having me. I am so honored to be here and I was so happy to talk to you. So thank you.

You got it. Yeah, we'll see you later.

Awesome. Thanks.

And that's a wrap on this episode with Erica. We so appreciate you tuning in and we hope you enjoyed it. I just think that Erica has these posts down to a complete science and they are so much fun to read and I highly encourage you check them out. You can get links to her Bake Offs, her blog, her social media, her videos and more at the show Notes for this episode@foodbloggerpro.com 294 you can get all of that there's and be sure to give her a follow on Instagram. She really does great work and just so excited to have been able to talk to her today. Last thing I wanted to mention that last thing that we talked about, her advice for switching up the content that you're producing on your blog. If you just need a little bit more of a nudge, I really do encourage you to take that leap and try out that idea that you've been thinking of. Ideas come all the time, as I'm sure you know as somebody who produces content. So if you have an idea that you're kind of on the edge of, I encourage you to give it a try. And you know, if you do, we'd love to hear about it in the comments of this episode too. Again, foodblirepro.com 294 all right, that does it for us this week. We'll see you next time next Tuesday. And until then, make it a great week.

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