01 Feb

Brown Eyed Baker Goes Social: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Oh My!

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 5 Comments

Brown Eyed Baker has jumped aboard the social networking train, and I’m inviting you all to come along for the ride! Whether you’re active on Facebook, like to Tweet your day away, peruse photos on Flickr or keep track of your web favorites with StumbleUpon or Delicious, you’ll now find Brown Eyed Baker on each of these mediums.

Take a peek below to get all of the details and then scurry off to add, follow, and subscribe to your heart’s content.

Become a fan of of Brown Eyed Baker on Facebook!
Visit the Brown Eyed Baker fan page, share it with your friends, and enjoy interacting with other readers. There will be updates on new posts, ideas that I’m working on, and exclusive giveaways.

Follow Brown Eyed Baker on Twitter @browneyedbaker.
Get a sneak peak of the recipes I am making and join some behind-the-scenes chatting about food and baking.

 

Not only can you view all of the pictures from Brown Eyed Baker on Flickr (and subscribe to the photostream), but now you can join the Recipes from Brown Eyed Baker group on Flickr. Made a recipe you found here and snapped a picture? Head on over to the group, share your pictures, and see what everyone else is making too!

Are you a stumbler? If so, you can subscribe to Brown Eyed Baker to keep up with my favorite food finds from around the web. And don’t forget to Stumble posts here on Brown Eyed Baker that you love as well!

 

I am new to Delicious, but am getting acclimated and will be saving favorite food sites from around the web. Add Brown Eyed Baker to your network, and remember to save Brown Eyed Baker posts that tickle your taste buds!

 

And last but not least, this obviously isn’t new, but don’t forget about the Brown Eyed Baker RSS feed! By subscribing you’ll receive new updates in your feed reader and you’ll never miss a recipe, tutorial or giveaway.

 

Wow, I feel so techie and hip. Someone get me a MacBook and a Starbucks latte! I’m truly excited about having additional ways to connect with my readers and am looking forward to even more interaction. See you all ‘round the web!

19 Nov

Get Ready for the Holidays with A Taste of Sam’s

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 5 Comments

You may not have turned on the Christmas music yet, but like it or not, Thanksgiving is next week. The holiday flood gates have opened. I absolutely adore the holidays – it’s my favorite time of year – and I’m thoroughly excited about decking the halls. For a lot of people, food is a central part of holiday celebrations and so loading up on favorites becomes a critical activity this time of year.

Being an avid baker, I am a member and big fan of Sam’s Club, since I can snag 4 lbs of butter for $6 and 3 dozen eggs for $3, not to mention a lot of other things. I wanted to share with you all that Sam’s Club is holding its annual Taste of Sam’s event this coming weekend, starting tomorrow, Friday, November 20th through Sunday the 22nd. Both members and *non-members are invited to the festivities, where you can sample Sam’s holiday food offerings, ranging from appetizers to main dishes to dessert. To see the types of foods that will be offered and when, check out the entire Sample Before You Serve Guide.

In addition to the samples that you will be offered, Sam’s Club is also planning a number of cooking demonstrations as well. Below is a list of the demonstrations that are being held each day:

Hope you all have a great pre-Thanksgiving weekend and can take advantage of the opportunity to taste some new food and, at the very least, perhaps get some new ideas for dishes to serve for your holiday dinners. Enjoy!

*If you aren’t currently a Sam’s Club member, simply print out the free one day pass on the last page of the Taste of Sam’s Guide. It looks like this:

08 Nov

POLL: Holiday Baking

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 13 Comments

With Halloween behind us, I am now in full-blown holiday mode. Well, my head, at least, is in full-blown holiday mode. I haven’t purchased a Christmas gift or baked a Christmas cookie yet, but I am ready for snow, Christmas trees, Christmas movies, and of course all of the wonderful aromas wafting from the kitchen while holiday goodies are baking. I am still trying to whittle down my list of cookies and candies and thinking about which I want to make for gift-giving and house visits, and which to make for pure enjoyment.

I’d love to try out some new recipes as well as share some of my favorites with you all here on Brown Eyed Baker, so I’m looking for some feedback. What types of recipes would you like to see featured as we head into the holiday season? I’d love for you to take part in the poll below, and feel free to add thoughts and opinions in the comments section! I would especially love to hear about your favorite holiday recipes.

I will leave the poll up for the next week and then start working through some great holiday recipes here on the site, based on your feedback.

Thank you for participating!

01 Nov

National Blog Posting Month: 30 Days, 30 New Posts

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 11 Comments

Yes, you read it right: I will be posting every single day during the month of November. National Blog Posting Month (otherwise referred to as NaBloPoMo) has been on my radar for a couple of years but I never gave serious thought to doing it because, well, that’s a lot of posting to commit to. Not to mention that it’s a traditionally busy time of the year. I hadn’t really thought about doing it this year either, but last week I saw that a couple of other food bloggers (Ezra Pound Cake and The Way the Cookie Crumbles, specifically) were planning on taking the plunge and made a spur of the moment decision to dive in with them.

It wasn’t until I had already signed on that I went to take a look back at what I had blogged about during November of 2007 and 2008. A whopping ONE blog post, combined. I had 0 posts during November 2008 and only 1 during November 2007. Apparently I hit a bit of a wall once the clocks change. I’m now even more convinced that this will be a great exercise for me.

So, here we go! 30 days – are you ready?!

08 Oct

“Best Baking Blog” – I’m a Finalist!

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 49 Comments

Grab your favorite cookie and celebrate with me! I found out yesterday that Brown Eyed Baker is a finalist in the “Best Baking Blog” category for the first annual Foodbuzz Blog Awards. Foodbuzz received over 3,500 nominations for food blogs in a variety of categories and the top 5 blogs receiving nominations in each category became the finalists. Talk about shock and awe when I found out I was a finalist! I am beyond flattered  that my co-finalists are Bakerella (queen of the cake pop), Joy the Baker (one of Times Online Top 50 Food Blogs), ZoeBakes (Zoe, co-author of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), and the ever-popular CakeSpy. Good company, indeed. To be mentioned in the same breath as any of these supremely talented foodies and bloggers is a reward in and of itself, so a great big THANK YOU goes out to any of you that may have nominated me. It means quite a lot to me and what I have achieved thus far with Brown Eyed Baker.

You can read about the announcement HERE.

And now a shameless request for your vote, if you feel I am deserving and you are so inclined. You do not have to register on any websites and you can only vote once, so the process isn’t labor-intensive. You can vote by going HERE.

(If you aren’t familiar with other categories, don’t worry, you don’t need to select one for each category. Brown Eyed Baker is listed under the “Best Baking Blog” category.)

30 Jul

POLL: Video How-To Posts

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 20 Comments

After all of the positive feedback I received on the How to Decorate Cookies with Royal Icing tutorial I did back in June, I have been taking notes on the suggestions many of you have sent me on future tutorials you’d like to see. How to make bread with yeast and how to cover cakes in fondant have been two of the popular requests. I was all set to take lots of pictures and document the step by step process and then it occurred to me that perhaps a video tutorial would be an even better way to demonstrate some of these techniques. Since I want to please all of you wonderful readers, I would love to have your feedback on the idea.

Q1: Would video how-to tutorials be useful to you? Would you rather have step by step pictures? Or a combination of both?

Q2: What topics would you like to see covered in how-to posts?

Thank you for your feedback!!

20 Jul

Tell me: Do you want this, or that?

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 11 Comments

I am planning a minor facelift here at Brown Eyed Baker and am looking for input from my readers. No worries, the look of the site is pretty much going to stay the same – same logo, same color scheme, but I am hoping to do some upgrading around a number of technical glitches and improvements, and that’s where I’d like you to make some noise and tell me what you’d like. What would make your experience here at Brown Eyed Baker even better?

I am currently planning on having the ability to reply to individual comments in a nested fashion so that we can have little “conversations” going on if someone has a question or a great suggestion – no need to scroll through all of the comments to see if something specific was responded to. Additionally, I am going to have a nicely organized recipe archives page so you can easily view all of the recipes in a particular category or posted during a particular month.

As I continue to plan there will be more tweaks and improvements added to the list, so please let me know what you would like! Is there something on another blog you love but isn’t available here? Do you have a wish list of what you think all great blogs should have? Is there some small thing that just bugs you every time you come to Brown Eyed Baker that you wish you could change?

The possibilities are endless, just let me know what you want to see here! I want my readers to fully appreciate their time spent here so I’d like to do all I can do to improve that experience.

Thanks in advance for your input!

02 Jun

How Can I Make Brown Eyed Baker Better for You?

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 9 Comments

We are closing in on a year since Brown Eyed Baker was launched on its own domain, with massive design changes. Hopefully you have found the new home welcoming and inviting, making you want to stay and kick up your feet once you get here. Given that it’s been a year since any major changes have been made to the site, I thought this would be a good time to reach out to readers and ask for feedback about what you like, don’t like, and how Brown Eyed Baker can be improved upon to make your experience here even better.

I’d love your feedback in some of the following areas:

♦ Content. Any recipes or general food topics you’d like to see covered in the coming months? What types of food/recipes/techniques would you like to learn the most about?

♦ Types of Posts. Standard recipe posts, cookbook reviews, product reviews, link roundups, how-to posts, video demonstrations… tell me what you would like to see!

♦ Posting Frequency. Too many posts, not enough, just right?

♦ Design. General feeling on the layout, colors, font. Are the navigation menu and sidebar useful? Any improvements you’d like to suggest? I am starting to work through a site redesign, so any insight you have here would be very helpful!

♦ Blog Features. What would make your reader experience better?

♦ Community. Do you want the ability to connect with other readers of Brown Eyed Baker? Are there features you’d like added to help connect more?

♦ Services and Tools. What could Brown Eyed Baker offer you to help you improve your time in the kitchen?

♦ Pros and Cons. What frustrates you about Brown Eyed Baker? What is best about it?

♦ Other Ideas and Feedback. Anything goes, big or little!

Any feedback, suggestions, critiques or ideas that you have are welcome. While I can’t promise to implement every suggestion, I do promise to read and take into consideration everything you have to say.

You can leave your feedback in the comments section below or email me directly at michelle@browneyedbaker.com.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

03 Dec

I’m in Business!

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 25 Comments

First an apology for my month-long hiatus here at Brown Eyed Baker – hopefully you’re all still around and excited to read my updates

Back at the beginning of November I officially launched my baking business:

Buona Dolce is Italian for the phrase “Good Sweets”. As many of you my who read my blog frequently know, I have strong ties to my Italian heritage and so in thinking of a name for my business, I really wanted my background to come through.

Keep reading for more information on the business and a lot of pictures of the orders I’ve filled this month!

Keep reading »

13 Oct

Housekeeping – Some New Features

Posted by Michelle as Brown Eyed Baker Site News | 3 Comments

Hey everyone, I have done a tiny bit of housekeeping here on Brown Eyed Baker and wanted to share some of the new features with you. Nothing earth shattering, but a few changes that I hope will improve your experience when you come to visit!

If you check out my category listings to the right you’ll see some changes, which are most notably around all of the bread here on the blog. I now have separate categories for Quick Breads, which includes muffins and scones, and Yeast Breads, which also includes other baked goods that use yeast such as bagels, cinnamon rolls, and the like. While yeast rolls will still be cross referenced in Yeast Breads, I also have a separate category broken out for rolls and biscuits. I hope that this new break out of categories makes browsing easier and you all have an easier time finding what you’re looking for!

At the end of each post is now a button that will enable you to share and bookmark the content found in the blog. The button looks like this:

When you click it a menu will come up that will give you a whole host of choices -  you can bookmark that post, email it to a friend, or share it on a variety of social networking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace, and others.

If you are a member of Facebook, you can now join the Brown Eyed Baker page and receive updates, view photos, and take part in discussions about what you like and don’t like about the blog, how I can make improvements, and connect with other readers. Click Here to go to the Brown Eyed Baker page and click “Become a Fan”.

Finally, I have created a photostream on Flickr, which you can view here. If you just looooove my pictures (hey, they’re improving!) you can subscribe to the photostream so you are alterted whenever a new photo is uploaded.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you all find the changes useful and exciting.

Happy Monday!

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