You know you’ve been around a bit when you start blogging from your archives… this chocolate and passionfruit roulade initially featured on my site during its first three months.
It was also one of the first posts I did after the food photography workshop at Scandinavian Kitchen.
Over night I had improved pictures but didn’t “get” how blog events worked.
I’d recently had my first ever comment although I wasn’t familiar with or visiting any other UK food blogs. It was the American baking sites that got me hooked, I was a big fan of She”s Becoming Doughmesstic and Recipe Girl, I’d not yet seen anything as ambitious in the UK.
I kept seeing posts headed “Tuesdays with Dorie” or “Daring Kitchen” but didn’t realise these were being blogged by more than one person (I know – you can laugh). I invented a challenge of my own called “Bake Five”, to bake five recipes from a specific book per month.
It wasn’t a concept I stuck with for long, I featured five recipes each from Rachel Allen’s Bake, a Donna Hay book and Harry Eastwood’s Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache. Ironically, the main reason I stopped “Bake Five” was I thought it would be outlandish to buy a new baking book every month… this was before I had publishers emailing me with offers to review their (sometimes good, sometimes lousy) books.
Only when I noticed several sites publishing Daring Bakers’ recipes all on the same day did the penny drop that food blogging was a community activity.
Around the same time I attended the first ever Food Blogger Connect, an event I’m delighted to also be attending this summer at The Hempel in London.
FBC has come a long way since that first meet up in a dark restaurant one rainy Saturday afternoon. Last year’s 3 day event set the template for what is now a conference to rival BlogHer Food and other events taking place in the US.
Scribbling down notes and listening to presentations from bloggers like Jaden of Steamy Kitchen and Meeta from What’s For Lunch Honey, I firmly believe my site would not be what it is today had I not attended these events.
Admittedly £300 for a conference is a lot of money, but if you were passionate about a hobby like skiing, you’d happily spend £300 on a weekend’s ski trip. Plus there’s nothing to stop you getting a brand to sponsor the cost, or part of the cost of your ticket – as is commonly done by bloggers going to the UK parenting blog conference Cybermummy.
An event like Food Blogger Connect is fabulous for meeting other bloggers, exchanging ideas and broadening your knowledge about blogging.
I’m always reviewing where I want my site and spin off activities to take me and am giving a lot of thought to this at the moment.
I’m not in a position to say much more at the moment but one thing I will say is that although it might seem like I’m publishing like crazy lately, this is a means to an end. I have tried on a few “outfits” shall we say, over the past few months and some of these are designer numbers I’ll cherish in my wardrobe for years to come and others are throwaway Primark junk.
I’m going to take a blog break from mid to late July then throughout during the summer holidays and when I come back there will be some changes.
Did you know where your blog would take you after three months? Did it end up some place else?
Food Blogger Connect 2011 takes place in London, 12-14 August. For more details visit foodbloggerconnect.com (site no longer available) and to see what it was like last year check out these posts:
“a taste of Food Blogger Connect”
“the food at Food Blogger Connect“
“friends old and new at Food Blogger Connect.”
This cake was initially published here in November 2009. I am republishing it to submit to this month’s We Should Cocoa currently hosted by Chele with the theme “swiss rolls and roulades.” (site no longer available)
It’s been a few months since I could enter anything to We Should Cocoa yet its organisers Chele and Choclette often participate in Forever Nigella so I wanted to return a bit of the love – although I was unable to make anything new – shock horror, call yourself a cake obsessive? I’ve barely baked anything since the middle of February – I realised I had something in my archives that a) hit the spot perfectly and b) probably hadn’t been seen by many people first time round. Voila!
Hi Sarah, My Blog is 2 months and 2 days old, so it’s really wonderful to read this. I love my blog, but sometimes I wonder where it’s going and wondering of it’s worth it. And my photography!? Shocking. I need to do a course! So to see your success now, it’s good to remember we all start somewhere
Anyway, thank you so much for posting this. I’m really looking forward to meeting you at FBC and I’m REALLY intrigued to find out what will be at the end of the summer…. x
Thanks Bea! I haven’t been on a proper photography course and I still look at many peoples’ photos with envy (they have more expensive lenses than me usually). I’m chuffed to bits how I’ve grown this site, just wish I’d started it five years earlier! Great to hear you are coming to FBC, you’ll have a great time!
Hey – well done, you! Can’t believe how far you’ve come since those far-off days. Brilliant work. Looking forward to seeing the intriguing ‘changes’ you mention… Keep it up! 🙂
Well thank you, the photography class you organised was definitely instrumental in me taking things forward!
I just decided today to go to FBC11 today after reading how much fun everyone had at Blogher. It’s a steep price but I’m hoping I’ll learn something (and at least I’m not flying to US on top of that).
Hurrah! I hope you’ll enjoy every minute, can’t wait to see you there!
I love the Roulade, it looks delicious. I’m in my 4th month of blogging, and am still finding it a challenge, I think a photo course and new camera would be a great idea for me. Would love to have gone to FBC but it’s the Sovereign’s Parade at sandhurst, and as a proud mother I’ll be there! Judith x
There’ll always be another FBC, maybe you can come next year?
Ah, what an interesting post- I love reading the ‘life-stories’ of more-established, successful bloggers, especially as a newbie to this blogging lark. And getting me to think of where the blog is going to be in three months leads to all manner of thought-provoking ideas! Have a lovely summer off!
PS: I’m loving hearing everyone’s different versions of roulade/swiss roll, the we should cocoa community are full of great ideas!
Thank you…. don’t get me started on life stories, I won’t shut up.
Thanks for sharing your blog memories, you’ve done really well to come such a long way. It seems like quite a tough challenge to work out where one’s blog is going. My ideas are still mostly unformed and rather vague. Look forward to seeing what you’re up to after the summer has rolled by.
Thanks for entering We Should Cocoa. We’re generally not keen on entering previously posted items as it rather goes against the spirit of the challenge. But given that this is a new post and will be interesting to bloggers and you’ve entered several of our challenges before AND the roulade sounds fantastic, I think we can make an exception this time 😉
Thank you for making the exception! I felt guilty I’d not entered for so long!
You’ve come a long way baby! Very interested to see what you’ll do next. I like the way you re-assess and think about the opportunities and yet are still able to take a break. Very healthy!
I’m just not able to leave stuff alone really!
Your roulade looks lovely.
I was interested to read your comment about getting sponsorship for events like FBC. Do you know how people generally go about getting it? Is it just a case of asking around? I’d love to attend FBC but can’t afford it this year so sponsorship is very appealing!
I might do another post about this… there are plenty of resources around relating to sponsorship for Cybermummy, I will try to pull some links together for people.
Thanks for the honest and inspiring post. I guess I just assume successful bloggers have some magic formula or secret trick but turns out they start out just like the rest of us wondering where their blog is going and figuring things out along the way. And the roulade looks amazing!
See you at FBC11 – can’t wait! It’s good to look back to enable you to go forwards.
Love this post! When I first started blogging in Jan 2010, I wanted to sign up for every blog challenge I could find! Now, I’ve learned I can’t do everything at once and, sometimes, I have had to put the blog on the backburner to concentrate on other things. I’ve just started blogging again after taking a break for my exams, so I’m looking forward to getting back into it again. You will be missed! Looking forward to your return 🙂
Thanks! I won’t be gone for long though!
hi there, I’m new to this blog, although have been blogging about 4 years (gulp) with varying degrees of assiduity. Just had to say I LOVE the look of this pudding. Not helped by feeling starving but I think I’d squeeze a slice in if I were full. Yummy! 2 of my favourite flavours.
Thank you! It does look tempting with all that chocolate dripping from it…
Sarah your blog and your journey is really inspirational and its very exciting to hear that you have some new tricks up your sleeve. I’m now in my seventh month of blogging and it has certainly been a steep learning curve. Posts that you put lots of time and effort into somethimes don’t get noticed whilst other, off-the cuff posts sometimes attract lots of attention. The main thing for me is that blogging is a brilliant creative process and anything that is creative will always evolve and change in one way or another. I’m so excited to go to FBC 11, especially to meet lots of the lovely people we interact with daily. I’ve put my name down for the photography course too!
Thank you! I can’t wait to see you again at FBC – nor to see how much your blog comes along in next few months as it has so much to offer!
Great post! Your blog is one of my favourites and I love your photos.
I’m sorry I will miss you at the FBC, it’s bang in the middle of the school summer hols. 🙁
Thank you! That means so much from someone who was already very well established when I started out. Will miss you at FBC!
Hi Sarah…always love your blog and the theme of this one hit a chord, not least because I am in the middle of baking 12 huge chcolate cherry roulades for a wedding (someone has subcontracted my services for this bit!) I’ve been blogging almost 2 years, but in Feb ’10 started a ‘breakaway’ food blog as I was posting so much about food on my regular, more personal site and not everyone was appreciative! As it’s my job, it feels natural to just natter on about food and foodie matters! Will look into the conference, as I would really love to attend and meet the ‘professionals’, as well as learn lots of new skills! Thanks for visiting my blog & your lovely comments too xoxo Rachel
Interesting post, and look forward to seeing the changes you’re planning to make – intruiging!
Would love to attend FBC, I’m sure there are loads of networking things I could do with/for my blog that I just don’t know about, but really can’t justify the cost, especially considering that I’d have to travel and stay over too. I’ll carry on looking at other people’s blogs and slowly getting other ideas from them though, so thankyou for the inspiration you provide.
lovely post – enjoyed your reflections – I think I need a photography workshop – though some space for photography would really help
This was a great read,as I’m just starting out it’s good to see that of course everyone has to start somewhere! Your blog is a favourite of mine. Thank you for sharing and I hope you have a lovely summer!
I’ve only been blogging for a year and 5 months and its been an amazing experience. I didnt now there was a FBC which sounds really interesting. Love the roulade especially the passionfruit bits.
Hop on over to the site to see more about it. Thanks for your roulade compliment too.
Can’t go wrong with chocolate and passion fruit… 🙂 Love the blogging memories. I had no idea whatsoever I was getting into when I started out 7 years ago. For starters, my entire blog was MUSTARD YELLOW. I mean really, WTF?! Hahahah! I admire the fact that you have atually given some thought to where you want your blog to go and what your goals are. I am never organised enough!