Passionate Baker 2020, The Year in Review

Hi friends! Happy New Year! This is a post I had planned to share with you after Christmas and before New Year’s – but those days just seemed to melt together in a glorious food-induced daze. So here it is, approximately 8-9 days late, but still just as valid: Passionate Baker 2020, The Year in Review. 2020 is the year I finally got the blog back on track in terms of regular posting and actually having the energy to create new content again. With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to do a look back and see what the most popular posts were!

The following were the most viewed recipes and travel guides from January to December 2020. Enjoy!

Reader’s Favourite Recipes:
1. Perfect All-Butter Pie Dough

This All-Butter Pie Dough sky rocketed to the number one position around Thanksgiving and I’m so glad: it’s literally PERFECT. It has roughly 120g more butter than any other pie dough recipe I’ve ever seen – so you know it’s going to be the best around. Extra butter = extra flavour!

2. Vanilla Birthday Cake with Homemade Strawberry Jam & Vanilla Buttercream

Not a day goes by without this Vanilla Birthday Cake getting a dozen views – which is funny, because I wasn’t originally going to share the recipe! Four layers of vanilla cake, sandwiched together with homemade strawberry jam & vanilla buttercream – the perfect birthday cake!

3. Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting

I’m so glad my Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting made it into the reader’s favourites – it was definitely one of my faves, too! Created for the blog birthday back in April, this is the perfect small cake for baking in lockdown: a single layer 7-inch cake, heavily laden with a cloud of chocolate fudge frosting. Yum.
*Honorable mention: third place was a tie between this and my Lime Loaf Cake – equally as easy and satisfying a bake!

My Favourite Recipes:
1. blood orange choux au craquelin

blood orange cream puffs

I was and still am so immensely proud of creating this choux bun recipe. The choux are topped with craquelin – ultimately, a crunchy brown sugar hat – filled with Blood Orange Cream, piped with a blood orange laced whipped cream, drizzled with a dark chocolate ganache, and topped with a dried rose petal. They’re totally extra and they were a big feat in my kitchen at the start of 2020. I’m hoping to add to my choux repertoire soon 🙂

2. Vanilla Sugar Palmiers

Vanilla Sugar Palmiers are officially my new favourite thing to bake; there is something so elegant yet simple about them. I make my own puff pastry for mine, but store-bought would do the job just as well! I gifted these to all of my loved ones in my Christmas Cookie Boxes and people loved them.

Reader’s Favourite Travel Guides:
1. 24 Hours in San Gimignano

I’d give anything to be back in Italy right about now, so I’m not surprised that my 24 Hours in San Gimignano post was the most visited travel guide of 2020. Boyfriend & I visited Italy in September 2019 – when the world was still standing somewhat upright – and it was so lovely to share our stories and photos during the year when we couldn’t leave the country. I think we all wish we were there, gazing out over the Tuscan hillside as the sun burns away the early morning mist. Sigh.

2. Lyon, France: The Highlights

I’m so pleased that my Lyon, France: The Highlights post was the no.2 reader’s favourite! Lyon was our last trip out of the country pre-Covid, back in December 2019, and we were so pleasantly surprised by how beautiful it was. Before we set sail I found it near impossible to find any food and travel blogs with posts about the city, and I simply had to right that wrong!

3. Seven Days on The Dingle Peninsula; A Staycation Guide

Well, it would hardly have been 2020 if my Dingle Staycation Guide hadn’t made it into the top three. Getting to escape off to the country for 9 days at the beginning of August was truly such a treat – one that we have Boyfriend’s parents to thank for! We loved every second of our time on the Dingle Peninsula, and sharing all of our favourite haunts in a blog post felt especially right this year.

my favourite travel guide:
Berlin Travel Guide | Four Days in the German Capital

I love each and every one of my travel guides, but I’ll keep it brief: my favourite from 2020 was my Berlin Travel Guide. It is probably the most in-depth travel guide I shared last year and it’s one that I was working on for literally years. Germany is especially close to my heart, so I was pretty psyched to share this post last January.

There we have it: Passionate Baker 2020, The Year in Review! What did you think? Did your favourite recipes and travel guides make it into the top three? I found it quite fascinating to go back over the recipes and travel guides shared and to see what got the most love; I’ll definitely be making this a yearly review!

Our Monthly Musings for January will be along shortly, we’re still ‘easing ourselves back’ to reality after the Christmas break.

My love to you,

Vicki xo



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