Some of you may have seen this post coming for a while now… I have decided to stop blogging. The past year and a half has been truly wonderful. This blog has opened my eyes to a whole new world filled with new people and experiences, and for that I will always be grateful. There are multiple reasons that went into making this decision and I won’t go into all of them, but mainly it is because baking was not fun anymore. Baking became so much more than just baking; photographing the food, editing those photos, typing up both the recipe and the post, sharing the post all over the web to increase traffic. It became a very time consuming process that I just couldn’t keep up with anymore. I tried just taking a break and not posting as often, and doing that allowed me to realize that I am more than just a girl who likes to bake. I have many other hobbies and passions that I was putting aside to make sure I was focusing all of my efforts on the blog.

Since making this decision last month, I have really enjoyed baking less (but still baking, and enjoying it more) and focusing on all of the other aspects of my life.

I want you all to know that this was a very difficult decision that I struggled with for months. Every time I would think about quitting I would receive I sweet email or comment that would bring me right back in. Your kindness and support have been wonderful! I encourage you to follow me on Pinterest, since that is where I have been getting much of my baking inspiration lately.

I wish you all nothing but joy and good health, and of course, happy baking!

Aimee

Hi friends! As you are reading this I am on a much needed vacation! One of the things I love about my job is that I get to attend one conference every year. Derek and I are big travel fanatics, so we like to make this annual trip into a vacation every year. I honestly pick the conference based on the cities we want to visit, and this year is Washington DC!

I have toyed with several ideas of what to do while I am gone, including just not posting or having a guest post from a fellow food blogger, but I decided that I wanted to give you all a little peak behind the scenes of BakingJunkie. I know that a lot of you are fellow food bloggers and understand the process quite well, but I also know that I have many non-blogger readers. I realize that we are naturally a voyeuristic society, so I’m hoping that you will all enjoy a look at my life behind the monitor!

First let me start with an updated family picture, with both of our “puppies” (Maisy will always be a puppy in our minds)

That’s Maisy on the left and Maiya on the right. She has been growing so much! Baking with her around can sometimes be a challenge, and she causde me to forget to add vanilla to a cheesecake recipe last weekend, but we still love her!

This is my kitchen, where I spent a great majority of my time at home. Besides the color of the cabinets, I am in love with it! It is one of the main reasons that I fell in love with our house when we bought it three years ago.

I try to do most of baking on the weekends, usually Saturday and Sunday mornings. During the first few months of the year we tend to be home most weekends, so I try to bake 2-4 different items between the two days. From March through December we spend a lot of time out of town on weekends, so it’s nice to have a back log of desserts to post about when I am too busy to bake a lot. Right now I have another 5 items baked, photographed and ready to post over the next few weeks.

If any of you have noticed, I do two posts a week. I’m afraid you all will get bored and forget about me with anything less than that, and anything more than that becomes way too stressful for me! I did 3-4 posts a week to get all of my holiday recipes in for December, and I vowed never to do it again!

This is hands down my favorite item in my kitchen. I use this mixer all the time, not only for baking, but for pizza dough and ice cream too. I am constantly washing and reusing the bowl several times in a day. I actually still use my old hand mixer as well, mainly when I make buttercream.

This is my baking drawer, directly below my mixer. It just keeps getting filled with more stuff! I have a feeling it will someday be completely full.

I love having two sets of measuring cups, and I’m thinking about getting another set of measuring spoons as well.

I am fortunate enough to have two large cabinets in my kitchen, one of which I use as a pantry. The extra baking supplies have taken over two shelves, and I’m sure that in time I will take over a third as well.

As most of you probably know (or can figure out from these pictures already), I am a pretty organized person. I hate clutter or having to dig for whatever it is I’m trying to find. These are some of my miscellaneous decorating items.

This is another pantry shelf where I keep my cookbooks and recipes. That stack of papers on the right hand side are all recipes that I have printed out or taken from magazines. Honestly, most of my recipes are either bookmarked or saved in my Google Reader, so this is just a small sampling! What I’m about to say may be considered food blogger blasphemy, but I don’t really like cookbooks that much! There are a select few that I really enjoy, but I usually only find a handful of recipes in each one so I don’t spend a lot of time or money amassing a huge collection.

This is the extent of my cookbook collection!

Here is my collection of plates and some of the fabrics and napkins I use in my photos. I keep collecting more and more.

These are just some of the items of have used for or in a background. I also have quite the collection of large pieces of construction paper.

The photography is definitely the area I struggle in the most, and is the most frustrating part of the process for me. Instead of baking whenever I would like, I now end up planning my baking around good daylight hours. Using a flash for food photography is absolutely out of the question. You will read this all over the internet for a reason, it makes the food look yellow and washed out.  Natural light is truly the best. I think I may have learned more about photography and lighting than I have about baking since I started this blog.

This is the setup I use most often when taking pictures. This is the area in the house where I get the most natural light coming in. Sometimes, if I’m feeling really motivated, I’ll move the table right next to the window. I always, always use a white foam board placed on the opposite side of the food to reflect back the light. You’ll be amazed at the difference this can make. For me, I get the best pictures with this light anywhere from 10am-3pm. Outside of those hours I tend to open up my front door (on the opposite side of the house), and place the food on an end table with the white board reflecting the light.

Well I hope you’ve enjoyed your tour around my kitchen and glimpse into my life as a food blogger. I won’t lie, there are days where I would love to just give it all up. Then you guys leave me comments and let me know how much you enjoy my recipes, and those thoughts fly right out of my mind. As long as you keep reading, I’ll be around for a while

I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities, you know, Minneapolis and St. Paul. This means that I am lucky enough not to have to travel far for the Minnesota State Fair. For those of you who aren’t so lucky or familiar with the fair, we call it the “great Minnesota get together”.  It is usually ranked as one of the top state fairs in the country, and for good reason. It runs for a week and a half at the end of every summer, and is actually one of the main reasons why most schools in Minnesota don’t start until after Labor Day. Now sure there are lots of people who go to the fair for the animals or the midway rides, but we go for one main reason – FOOD!

The fair is known for all kinds of crazy food, mainly anything deep fried or on a stick, or both! We have started a tradition where we have some good friends come into town for Labor Day Weekend and spend an afternoon at the fair. We have one very simple rule: you are allowed to buy any food you want, but you must share! That way we all get to sample a little bit of everything without breaking the bank (or exploding our stomachs)! Yes I know this is mainly a baking blog, but I figure many of you out there are foodies like me and would enjoy seeing some of these phenomenal treats! I apologize for some of the pictures not being of high quality, they were usually taken pretty quickly so we could all dive into the food!

Derek and I on the way to the fair.

The insanity! Do you see all those people???

Our first purchase…Australian Battered Potatoes. From what we could tell they were giant slices of potatoes battered and fried, and served with either ranch dressing, cheese sauce, hot sauce, or ketchup. Quite tasty and a worthy opening to the fair this year. From what we could tell the only thing Australian about them was the fact that they stuck a mini Australian flag on a stick in the middle!

One of Derek’s favorites, a Scotch Egg. A hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage, then breaded and fried, served here with honey mustard or ranch dressing. Personally not one of my favorites, but Derek can’t get enough.

Ahh, cheese curds. A state fair staple. We lived in Nashville for three years and that experience taught me that many people outside of Minnesota and Wisconsin have never heard of cheese curds, so let me enlighten you. Fried pieces of mozzarella cheese people, pure heaven!

A new item this year, and one of everyone’s favorites: Deep fried cheddar-bacon mashed potatoes on a stick. Wow. Served with gravy, ranch, honey mustard or sour cream. I have a feeling these will be purchased again next year!

Deep fried pickle slices. I have usually enjoyed these in the past, but this year we bought them from a different stand and they had a Cajun seasoning and quite a kick! Probably my least favorite of the whole day.

Always a popular favorite, Sweet Martha’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. You can either get 6 cookies served in a cone like this, or about 4 dozen served in a bucket. They are always served fresh and warm and the chocolate is gooey and delicious!

One of my new favorites, a Pickle Dog. A pickle spear wrapped in cream cheese and pastrami. Absolutely fabulous and just like eating a giant pickle roll-up (another typically midwestern appetizer).

Another staple at any state fair, a massive foot long hot dog.

Big Fat Bacon, on a stick. Salty and actually quite tasty. My friend Dave is a lover of all things bacon so it was only natural that he tried this. There is chocolate covered bacon somewhere on the fairgrounds, but we have yet to find it.

By far the highlight of the fair for me every year, Deep Fried Candy Bars. Can it really get any better than this? Pictured here are Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. They also have Three Musketeers and Oreos.

Mmmmmm, YUM!

One of my other fair highlights, sweet corn. Dipped in a vat of butter and covered in salt and pepper…pure joy!

Hello delicious! Chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. I don’t think I really need to say anymore!

Another fair favorite…the deep fried Twinkie (pictured on the right). On the left are deep fried canolli’s, which were ok, but not my favorite.

Sampling various different Minnesota wines. Notice how the cardboard carrier is in the shape of MN? I love it! The raspberry wine was my favorite, and the rhubarb was a close second.

The “princess” of the fair is known as Princess Kay of the Milky Way, and must be the daughter of a dairy farmer. In the dairy building of the fair all of the candidates sit in what is basically a chilled turntable and get their likeness carved in a 90 pound block of butter. Only in Minnesota folks!

And to round out the fair, my friend Julie had to get some cotton candy. I haven’t had this in YEARS! I forgot how much it dissolves once hitting your tongue. I didn’t eat much of the cotton candy because, honestly, I was so STUFFED!

If you ever get a chance to visit the MN state fair, my best piece of advice is to go hungry! I guarantee you’ll have a fabulous time.

Happy Labor Day!