Secrets from your Favorite Food Bloggers

One morning as I was baking, I realized that my stand mixer was still dirty from the last time I used it and I thought to myself, my readers would probably be surprised to see my kitchen such a mess right now.  I, like most food bloggers, work really hard to produce incredibly beautiful photos of food, presented perfectly to inspire our readers.

What all of us bloggers don’t want you know to… all those pictures we post on our blog, well they took a whole lot of time, energy and usually a big mess to create!  Our homes never look as nice as they do in the pictures, our food isn’t always perfectly staged and I can guarantee you that our family is getting a cake with a big slice taken out of it!

Here are a few Secrets from your Favorite Food Bloggers that will remind us all that the blogger behind the beautiful picture is just like you!

Betsy Eves – JavaCupcake

There are times my stand mixer doesn’t get cleaned and the next time I go to use it, it still has cookie dough or cake batter still stuck on it.  Also, I’m kinda a klutz when it comes to dropping things in the kitchen.  As long as my family is the only one eating whatever I’m baking, if I drop the whisk/spatula/spoon on the floor, I usually just pick it up and start using it with washing it off.  I mean, my floor is clean, right?

Kayle Blogna – The Cooking Actress

Sometimes I end up with butter in my hair and don’t even realize it until my fiancé points it out.  I rarely clean my kitchen because I know I’m just going to get it dirty again.  Sometimes there’s no actual food in the house because I cannot figure out what to make for dinner (but there are cookies!).

Liz Weber Berg – That Skinny Chick Can Bake

If you wear yoga clothes every single day, there is no need for an apron! I leave ALL my dirty dishes for the hubby to clean – we have a deal as if he baked and I did dishes, we’d both be in trouble!

Nichelle Stephens – Cupcakes Take the Cake

I have used French Vanilla Creamer instead of milk when baking.

Amanda Rettke – i am baker

(From Amanda’s blog post “Cleaning Up“) And this is what my kitchen looked like ALL WEEK. Well, all month maybe. I am not sure. It’s been bad for a while. I mean, I get in there and do a few dishes and try to keep the clutter to a minimum… but yeah. It’s been a total disaster. And so have I. At least, emotionally.

Carla Cardello – Chocolate Moosey

Ohhh I’m with Kayle – even though there may be food in the house, usually I’m shooting cakes or dips or a drink and then when it’s actually dinner time, I have no clue (or energy) to make dinner.

Dani Meyer – The Adventure Bite

Recipe developing for a living means that at least 1/3 of our dinners are barely edible….and the other 1/3 are so so and the final 1/3 are really good. There are times when a shipment of product comes in from a brand and it’s all we eat for a week because I’m too tired to go grocery shopping.

Carolyn Ketchum – All Day I Dream About Food

My butter is almost never properly softened because I always forget to take it out on time. But I will always tell YOU to make sure it’s properly softened.  Oh, and sometimes I let the bowl sit over the heating vent to get it more softened. Same with cream cheese.

Brianne Izzo – Cupcakes and Kale Chips

For my son’s 2nd birthday, I made two cakes for two different family parties, both of which I sliced, photographed, re-assembled, filled in the cracks with frosting, and added decorations and happy birthday messages to hide the evidence.

Lindsay Ann – Lindsay Ann Bakes

I always make a batch and a half of frosting “just in case” I run out, but really because I have a tendency to go a little overboard on the “taste testing” while making it, without fail every time. After all, what would I eat the cake scraps with after leveling to tops! My second trick, when I am trying to “be good”,  is to chew a fruity flavored gum so I can’t shove everything in my mouth.

Susan Lightfoot Moran – The View from Great Island

One time we were experiencing an ant invasion, and I thought I had it under control, but ended up rolling some of the little fellas right into my pie crust – I didn’t want to do the whole thing over, so I used it and never said a word — a little bit of extra protein can’t hurt, right?

Gwen Wilson – Simply Healthy Family

When I first started baking I thought almond butter meant to mix almond extract with real butter. Those were some buttery cookies!  More often than not I dump the entire ingredient list in my KitchenAid instead of separating dry from wet and adding gradually, whipping in butter, etc (I hope Liz Weber Berg doesn’t see this!).

Liz Della Croce – The Lemon Bowl

Baking with yeast scares me to death.

Hayley Parker – The Domestic Rebel

1) I’ve never used a candy thermometer and I refuse to get one – they freak me out!
2) There’s probably dog hair in nearly everything I bake (sorry).
3) Sometimes I’ll get this intense need to bake and will do so, but the following day I don’t feel like photographing soooo I let the stuff sit around for days until I get my motivation to photograph it. There are numbers of things on my blog that are days old, rotten, etc. but look good for pics still so I shoot them.

Amy Winning Flanigan – Very Culinary

I cut mold off of cheese and bread and salvage the rest. Lord, that sounds gross just writing it. But hell, my Nan lived to be 98 and I know she ate moldy food, so there’s that.

Amy also posted a picture on Instagram of a little spaghetti fiasco she had last month.  Doesn’t get much more real than this!

😭😦😠👎

A photo posted by Amy Flanigan (@veryculinary) on Mar 20, 2015 at 12:13pm PDT

Mindy Boyce Cone – Creative Juice

All the photos on my blog show our food and desserts on pretty plates and platters with fabric napkins. But in reality my family has been eating on paper plates and using paper napkins for the last year because after cooking and baking so much the sink is filled with bowls, spatulas, and measuring cups and I needed to eliminate more dishes piling up in the sink to keep it under control! But hey – I let them use real utensils so that’s something right?

Katrina Bahl – In Katrina’s Kitchen

I rarely try to wipe butter or shortening of my hands. I just rub it in like lotion. It’s much easier and kind of awesome.

Ashley Presciutti – Wishes and Dishes

I wait until midnight or later the night before a holiday to test out new recipes to bring to wherever I’m going or to serve to dinner guests. Then I cry when they turn out to be disasters. I never learn my lesson! I’ll do it the next holiday, too.

Joan Hayes – Chocolate, Chocolate and More

My kids love it when I have a baking fail (like a cake sticking to the pan) then they don’t have to wait until I photograph it to eat it!

Carrie Fields – Fields of Cake and Other Good Stuff

When photographing the majority of my food, all the mess from the previous meal, school work and other completely random things are usually pushed behind the backdrop or over to the side where you can’t see it. There is RARELY a clean moment in my house.