It's been 10 years!

Hello to all,

Today marks my blog's 10 year anniversary.

I started blogging after I had my first child and this year she turned 10 in August. The first recipe that I blogged about was the Moist Chocolate Cake that I bake quite often. And until this day, I've posted 1288 posts, of which should be around 1200 recipes, at least. Many of the recipes are with referred sources (usually with some personal adaptations to suit my preference) and recreated by me without any recipe to refer to, and I'm always proud of the recipes that I created by myself.

Looking back.... My most active years were 2010-2013 and in 2010 I posted for mostly 6 days a week. 2011 I slowed down a bit due to my house move and a new baby. I really slowed down when I went back to work. I tried hard to upkeep my tempo, but it was hard. Even when I finally resigned and left the working world, it's hard to go back to how it was.

Why did I resign from my lifelong paying job as a Government School Teacher then? Blogging earns alot, right, with all the high readershipI get....... Some people tend to think I earn a lot from blogging. If USD20 a month is a lot, please .... I'm really not earning enough to even buy the annual amount of butter I use in a year. Being a mother is difficult. Being torn between children and work, I chose to stay home and be just a mother and wife. I didn't resign to focus full time on blogging.

Maybe sometimes I felt silly, that I share recipes for free, and some people, knowing that my created recipe works, just use it for commercial publication that isn't for free. This type of feeling just makes me feel demotivated. But what can I do? I feel happy when people try the recipes I shared and feedback to me. And I am happy with all the new friends I made on Facebook when reader connect to me, and that's what I should focus on.

Many years ago, I was tagged by ShuHan from Mummy I can Cook to do a '7 posts' post. I responded to her invite, but I did it the wrong way instead by listing my fav 7. LOL. I guess I should revisit that and do it right this time.

1. The most beautiful post
2. The most popular post
3. The most controversial post
4. The most helpful post
5. The post that was surprisingly successful
6. The post that did not get the attention it deserved
7. The post I'm most proud of





1. The most beautiful post

I don't know.... the most beautiful..... maybe the rainbow ones? Like Rainbow no bake Cheesecake, Rainbow Jelly, Rainbow this rainbow that?

To me I find it most heartwarming to write about my children, but as time goes by, they are growing up and I should refrain from posting too much about them. And I do get feedback from readers saying how much they loved it when I wrote about my children, about them growing up, the pain and the worries and the joy... They are beautiful to me, and beautiful to write about.

The carousel cake could spin

But if it's about the most beautiful creation I've ever done... it will be the Montebello Torte. Utterly delicious and beautiful.

2. The most popular post

All time popular :
1. Mrs NgSK Butter Cake
2. The Best Melt in the Mouth Pineapple Tarts
3. French Buttercream
4. Coconut Raspberry Lemon Cake
5. Batik Cake
6. Ratatouille
7. Homemade Pineapple Jam
8. Arrowhead Chips
9. Mango Cheese Charlotte
10. Durian Cheesecake

#3, #4,and #6 is popular because of Pinterest. They were being pinned and pinned and pinned.
#9 was due to a feature by a prominent website and #10 was due to a feature by AFC.
#2, #7 and #8 were popular Chinese New Year recipes and #1 was the all time ever popular unexpectedly viral recipe.

Dessert recipes are definitely most popular on my blog, but I love cooking savoury dishes more.

3. The most controversial post

I will say... it's " KL Hokkien Noodle "

The controversy didn't happen on the blog, but due to the video on Youtube.
I am not a Youtuber, not purposely making the video as Youtube content, but as supporting content to my blog post. Instead it garnered a lot of negative comments about how it was being cooked, saying that's not how hawkers cook it or the original method, or how slow I was in cooking just one noodle dish.

Oh well, haters are gonna hate. They didn't read the wordings or understood the title of the video, saying it's a method for home stoves of which doesn't have the same heating as a commercial stove.

And I was really worried when I recreated Kampar popular hawker fares..... worried that I get backlash for trying to be smartypants and then spreading the recipes around..... it's people's lifelihood, and me trying to crack their recipes... it was a scary period, hahahaha!


4. The most helpful post

I think..... it could be "How to keep spring onions for days or weeks ". There were a handful of positive feedback from this tip.

Usually it's my step by step picture recipes that I get feedback that it was helpful.
8-9 years ago, it was the Orange chiffon cake that helped many because back then, the novice baking scenario was way different from now, there aren't many pictorial guides around, unless one buys a book, even that, books back then don't contain that many pictures.

Some also find my Homemade Pineapple Jam to be helpful, because I talk about choosing pineapples and why this why that... well, if you don't find me long winded.

5. The post that was surprisingly successful

I was really taken by surprise by Mrs NgSK's butter cake.

It was just a butter cake, I thought. And everybody knows how to bake butter cakes, so it seems to me, cos every body who bakes when I was a child seems to make only butter cakes. And I thought not many people like to eat butter cake, because I always hear people saying it's fattening with so much butter and so old fashioned and easily available at even coffee shops.

The only problem with the one I make and the one sold is that, mine cracked like crazy. That's why I decided to ask Mrs Ng for her recipe ratio. The response I got from that posting was overwhelming and the recipe frenzy went worldwide with many Youtube videos being made by others to show how to bake this cake. Mrs Ng herself told me, she was really surprised and happy that her friends from overseas responded to her that it was very popular wherever they are.

Another one will be "Nasi Goreng Kampung". Oh my..... this one.
My picture was used by many Ala-Thai restaurants in Malaysia in their menu. Good thing is they never removed the watermark, so they never claimed it's theirs. My readers wrote to me either through email or Facebook, reporting all these restaurants who are using them. So, maybe that leads to all the hits to the recipe. LOL. It's just a very common fried rice.... and I thought huh? Why? What a way to get famous, hahaha.


6. The post that did not get the attention it deserved

I think, it has to be Kuih Bangkit.

Kuih Bangkit recipes were really popular back when I started blogging, and many people seem to want to try making them. But the feedback I read from all the recipes were also not that good because making traditional cookies that need a feel of the hand is hard to gauge. I do hear that the outcome is crunchy, or hard or total failure that they have to be discarded. Many people tend to be scared to try it again.

I, never thought of making it, because it's cheap to buy from factory made ones, of which are tasty too, but since it's a favourite of many in my family, I decided to try making some. It really was tricky, and I managed to make a precise recipe that doesn't need gauging after a few attempts. But maybe times have changed and, people after failing multiple times from previous attempts, could no longer be interested to try making kuih bangkit, LOL! That's what I was told in Facebook. It's the phobia of failing again!

It's ok, but at least I have a recipe that I like to use now, my own recipe.

7. The post I'm most proud of

I have won two competitions before, a cooking and a baking one. But I don't really feel proud of winning and blogging about them. I'm just happy that I've got them done.

I love recreating recipes of food that I have eaten before. Making the right guesses always makes me jump in delight. I'm happy when my senses are accurate, when I could get it right because it's a sense of personal achievement.

I'm most proud of the family recipes that I could recreate. It feels like I didn't let the flavours die off. It's never about winning competitions.

Kwongsai Stuffed Tofu

Pan Fried Pork of Grandaunt's

I hope I will continue to blog for as long as I can, I need to get my mojo back. Blogging nowadays isn't like how it was 10 years ago... the scene has gone quiet. I'm not talking about comments, but a lot of my fellow blogging friends have slowed down, as much as I did, or worse many have stopped.

Pray for me, that my passion for sharing will continue to burn.
Til then.... Happy School Holidays to all Malaysians.