Archive for: Blog Posts

Reuniting people with the cakes and cookies they may not have been able to eat in years is just one of the things gluten-free baker Becky Excell loves most about being a blogger. Read on for some of her favourite recipes shared over the years and one she’s still yet to fully master…

What keeps you passionate about baking and blogging about it?
I would love to say it’s because I’m so incredibly self-motivated, but in reality, I’m definitely not! It’s actually all the wonderful comments that my followers leave me that keeps me motivated, but most of all it’s when they tag me in photos of what they’ve baked using my recipes. That undoubtedly keeps me infinitely passionate and motivated! Plus, as I’m a gluten-free baker, it makes me so happy to know that I’m reuniting people with bakes they may not have otherwise eaten in literally years.

How have you had to change your approach to blogging, or your content, during the COVID-19 crisis?
It was definitely a change that I had to react quite quickly to. Much like with regular flour, gluten-free flour was incredibly hard to come by for at least a solid month or more. So instead of the usual sponge cake, cookies and brownie-based recipes, I had to get my thinking cap on and try to make as many ‘flour-free’ recipes as I could. Fortunately, recipes like no-bake cheesecakes only require gluten-free biscuits which you can bash up for the base and then the filling is pretty simple. I felt like baking became a lot of people’s escape from the madness (and boredom) of the COVID-19 lockdown, so I tried really hard to create and post recipes that were simple, quick and omitted ingredients that were hard to come by.

Funnily enough, I think most people preferred the easy, quick recipes anyway!

Have you tried any of the recipes that have gone viral/been popular during lockdown?
For a few solid weeks, the entire world seemed to be making banana bread, so naturally, I had to whip up one or two (or seven) loaves of my own! I’m not entirely sure why banana bread became the official cake of lockdown, but it is one of those comforting, wholesome bakes that you absolutely cannot go wrong with. I didn’t try the Dalgona coffee, that everyone seemed to love, though… as I don’t like coffee!

What’s the worst bake you’ve ever attempted to make?
How long have you got?! I’m honoured that I’ve been lucky enough to be featured in Vuelio’s best baking blogs, as I’m a bonafide amateur baker who never learned anything past food tech at secondary school! And while I’m super proud of all the content I post that appears to be perfect, behind it all is a lot of failure mixed with trial and error to get to that perfect bake.

So, my worst bake is actually one of my own recipes! There was an embarrassing period where everyone was making my ‘Bruce Bogtrotter’ chocolate cake really successfully, so I thought I’d bake it and update the photos on the blog post. But I just kept messing it up! It was totally sunk in the middle every time and I just couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong. I eventually got there in the end, but there was a period where I said to Mark, ‘I can’t even make my own recipes anymore!!’

Best-tasting thing you’ve ever made?
It’s got to be my no-bake Snickers caramel tart that I posted a few weeks ago – it’s probably the most indulgent, sweet, nutty and creamiest thing I’ve ever made, all in a single slice. It has a buttery biscuit base, topped with a caramel that’s packed with chopped, roasted nuts. Then, pour on a chocolate ganache mixed with peanut butter and top with chopped Snickers bars. Pure heaven! Best of all, it’s totally no-bake, so that means no gluten-free flour or oven required.

For those who haven’t yet started baking, which basic tools would you suggest they stock the kitchen up with?
For me, an electric hand mixer is probably the one thing I’d always recommend that any aspiring baker should start with. It can make baking so much quicker, easier and they can be relatively inexpensive too. Without one, baking can seem like really hard work, especially when it comes to whipping up buttercream icing or meringue.

Failing that, a silicone spatula is priceless too. Unlike a wooden spoon, you can use it to properly scrape down the sides of your mixing bowls to ensure that you mix evenly and don’t waste a drop.

Favourite TV chefs?
This is probably really boring, but Jamie Oliver is the first TV chef that springs to mind (not that he is boring!). Purely because he could be making the most convoluted, complicated thing in the world, yet you still turn the telly off thinking ‘yeah, I’m definitely now capable of making fresh pasta from scratch’ – even though I definitely can’t!

Otherwise, I’ve always loved Ching He Huang – her happiness is infectious and she makes a lot of really quick dishes from scratch, using simple, fresh ingredients. I think that’s actually really hard to do!

Oh and of course, the Queen herself, Mary Berry. Who doesn’t love her?!

How do you collaborate with brands and which kind of brands do you really like working with?
I usually collaborate with brands through Instagram, YouTube and on my blog by creating sponsored recipes. I love collaborating with brands and using their products directly in my recipes – often it’ll help me to come up with new and exciting bakes that I’d never have even considered otherwise.

But beyond using products as literal ingredients in my recipes, I always enjoy teaming up with brands who ask me to showcase their appliances. I’ve worked with Panasonic showcasing how to make fresh gluten-free bread in their breadmaker; something that my audience was already genuinely interested in and always asked me about. I also worked with Tefal to demonstrate how to make gluten-free cakes in their quirky Cake Factory machine. It always presents a new challenge and more often than not, it’s an appliance than can take the stress out of baking, which is never a bad thing!

For PRs looking to work with you and your blog/website, how would you prefer they approach you and with what kind of content?
They can happily just contact me via the contact form on my website, which will land straight in my inbox. As I said, nine times out of ten, I create sponsored recipe posts on my blog or on social media, using a product to create something that I know my followers will love.

Of course, the one caveat is that the product has to be gluten-free. I do get emails asking me to collab, then I find out that the product isn’t even gluten-free! I’m passionate about food photography, but I love creating recipe tutorial videos over on my YouTube channel, too. So either works for me!

What other blogs do you check out regularly (whether baking-related or not)?

I love reading Carrot & Crumb which is a baking blog (not gluten-free) by Benjamini Ebuehi from The Great British Bake Off. All the photography is beautiful and the cakes aren’t the average bog-standard bakes that you might expect. She definitely knows how to experiment with unique ingredients and creative flavour combos to create something totally new.

‘One of the biggest joys of blogging is that you don’t have to confine yourself to a specific niche,’ says Tim Liew, the blogger behind Slouching Towards Thatcham. Having written about sport and covered TV for the Metro, Tim is a master of many niches. What he’s focusing on at the moment? Keeping a complete record of his time as a father of three children.

How did you originally get started with writing about parenting?

I’d been writing a sports blog for a year, so starting another one to record my experiences as a first-time dad seemed like a natural progression. I drafted half a dozen posts but didn’t publish anything until nearly a year after Isaac was born. Oops.

Anyhow, 12 years later I’m still going and have an almost complete record of my time as a father of one, two and now three kids. I still kick myself for those missing ten months, though.

What’s your favourite thing to post about and why?

Anything and everything, as long as it’s something I’m passionate about. One of the biggest joys of blogging is that you don’t have to confine yourself to a specific niche. Over the years, I’ve written about much more than fatherhood. I’ve published and performed parody songs, and written about topics as diverse as politics, social media and TV (I wrote TV reviews for the Metro for three years).

I’m starting to dabble more in current affairs now. Not because I have anything unique to say – quite the opposite, in fact. I write from the standpoint of an ordinary dad, wondering how to make sense of the world for his children. Ever since I became a dad, my world-view has been skewed by thoughts of how what we do today will impact our children tomorrow.

How have you had to change your approach to blogging, or your content, during the COVID-19 crisis?

It’s been quite an organic change, in truth. Obviously, there have been fewer opportunities to write about things we’d normally be doing outside of the house. Instead, I’ve been writing a series of ‘Life Under Lockdown’ diary-style posts. This has been such a unique period in all our lives that I wanted to capture what it’s been like to live through it. How it’s felt to self-isolate. Our thoughts and fears. The adjustments we’ve had to make and the unexpected upsides.

History will record the major events of the pandemic for posterity; I wanted to capture our day-to-day reality. I hope that one day we will be able to re-read these posts and remember the minutiae of these times.

How will lockdown have changed the way those co-parenting view their family duties and how they share responsibilities? Will we see more men embracing being stay at home dads?

Maybe. Maybe not. If nothing else, the past three months have shown working dads like me that it’s possible to do things in a different way.

For me, lockdown has meant working at home in a house with five people all competing for the wifi. That has been … challenging. It has been harder on my wife, who works in the dining room while I’m closeted away in the study on video calls most of the day. Consequently, she’s the first person the kids turn to when they’re bored or need help with something.

It’s left me with this strange feeling of ‘working parent guilt’. My work day is essentially unchanged, just in a different location. But I also have a lot more opportunity to interact with my kids during the day. I didn’t have that before, and while I do what I can to help out, I know it’s neither enough nor as much as I’d like to. It gnaws at me.

What is definitely different is that I have more time with the kids outside of working hours, which has been wonderful. We eat dinner together on weeknights, which never used to happen. Now that lockdown has eased, they often join me on walks where we can share what we’ve been up to or what we have planned.

I feel like I’m a bigger part of their day by virtue of being at home more. And while I have no desire to swap being a working dad for being a stay-at-home dad, the last three months have cemented my desire to be more of a work-at-home dad, even after things have returned to normal.

How would you recommend parents currently struggling with working from home with their family duties deal with the difficulties?

Be kind to yourself and cut yourself some slack. You can’t do everything and in this time of enormous change it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and a bit down from time to time.

What has worked for us as a family is an open acceptance that it’s okay to not be okay occasionally. We’ve all had our tired and grumpy days at some point; we’re only human. What we’ve reinforced with our kids is that we’re all in this together, as a family. So everyone has to play their role, whether it’s helping out with household chores or just biting their lip when someone’s having a bad day.

Best no-fuss stress-free family meal for busy times?

On a good day: a barbecue outside in the sun. Otherwise, we’ve made a virtue out of ‘leftover days’ where everyone chips in to prepare a big family fried rice.

How do you collaborate with brands and which kind of brands do you really like working with?

I’ve scaled back on brand work a lot over the past few years so I can afford to be selective. I work best with brands either I or the kids are genuinely passionate about. And the best brands to work with are the ones who are receptive to feedback and ideas rather than insisting that you stay ‘on brief’. Trust that an influencer knows their audience. Don’t stifle their creativity.

For PRs looking to work with you and your blog/website, how would you prefer they approach you and with what kind of content?

It’s simple; I don’t ask for much. Be respectful of my time and value, and do at least a modicum of homework. I don’t expect you to have committed my children’s life history to memory. But my youngest child is eight – it says so on my ‘about’ page – so don’t approach me with baby products. It’s just common courtesy, really.

What other blogs do you check out regularly (whether parenting-related or not)?

I read an eclectic mix of blogs covering everything from social media and business topics to sports and TV.

But in the parenting sphere, I’m drawn towards blogs with stories about experiences that are completely different to my own. So, a few in no particular order: Dad Blog UK (John is a former journalist and PR turned stay-at-home dad), Our Transitional Life (about Kelly, her transgender wife Zoey and their two kids), Daddy & Dad (two dads, two boys) and LesBeMums (two mums, one boy). I love the way each of these opens a window into a life that, ostensibly, is completely different to mine – and yet in many ways oh so familiar. In a world where we are too often encouraged to stay to the mainstream and fear ‘the other’, these are stories that matter.

‘Beer is usually just one thread in a bigger experience and that relationship and connection is something that really fascinates me’ – Look at Brew blogger Rachael Smith likes to look beyond what’s in the bottle when it comes to beer. Originally fascinated by the artwork on the outside, Rachael now aims to cover the full experience of beer; the brewing and the people behind the brand labels.

How did you originally get started with writing about beer?
I’d been a keen beer drinker for a few years, all traditional British stuff, then started to notice a shift. The likes of Beavertown, Camden, The Kernel, Brew by Numbers, etc. were releasing beer styles that I’d not heard of before and often with striking labels which really stood out and marked them as something new and different. I was drawn to the artwork of these new beers so I set up my blog as a way to document them. The blog soon developed and has evolved to be a celebration of all beer and brewing.

What’s your favourite thing to post about and why?
I’m writing more think pieces these days and really trying to use mindfulness in my approach when it comes to how I feel about beers and pubs in particular moments. Beer is usually just one thread in a bigger experience and that relationship and connection is something that really fascinates me so that’s where my interest is currently.

I do reviews as well but have made the decision to move these to Instagram only as that’s how the scene seems to have progressed. People don’t want to read a long review anymore; they’re checking Instagram for a quick commentary and a good photo. I will always try to give honest reviews and point out if improvements can be made – it’s better for everyone instead of just hyping something up, and there’s a lot of hype in beer! I’m a fan of travel pieces and brewery features, too, and enjoy telling the story behind favourite breweries and beers, so that’s something I’d like to do more of.

How have you had to change your approach to blogging, or your content, during the COVID-19 crisis?
I’ve been trying to shine a light on all the local independent brewers doing delivery just to keep afloat. There’s a huge community vibe within the local beer scene and it really feels like folks have rallied to help small businesses during the pandemic. I’ve put a list on the blog of the local brewers and bottle shops offering takeaway or delivery and I’ve been buying direct too, so my Instagram feed has reflected this, also. But generally, anything that I’ve written has been as a result of what is being experienced right now; life during lockdown, missing the pub experience, the beers I’ve been drinking. Even if I’ve had ideas for content not directly influenced by lockdown, I’ve not felt the need to post them – it just hasn’t seemed relevant or important, but as we’re moving towards things easing, that’ll change.

Any particular pubs or bars you’ve really been missing during the lockdown?
Yes, many! In particular is The Surrey Oaks in Newdigate which is a wonderful traditional country pub with a huge beer garden. It is welcoming to families which is a must, with a toddler in tow. They’ve got a great team who serve incredible food, cask and modern keg beers. It’s the moon on a stick and will be my first port of call. In my hometown, Horsham, we’ve got some fantastic pubs too, and an evening spent in The Malt Shovel, Anchor Tap or Frog & Nightgown will be greatly enjoyed when the time comes.

What’s the first beer you ever tried, and do you still drink it occasionally?
I think it was probably a little French or Belgian beer, the kind that comes in little stubby green bottles, cheap as chips (cheaper in fact), from the supermarket. I don’t remember much beer in the house growing up, but there were those in the summer, and I remember Dad would have a bottle after a day in the garden or mowing the lawn. I remember joining him for one after an afternoon of gardening. I haven’t bought any for a long time now but that will have to be rectified!

Any breweries from the past that you wish were still around?
I’ve got to say Hastings Beer Co. The team brewed some incredible saisons and hoppy brown ales. They were definitely ahead of the curve locally in terms of style trends and the quality was there to back it up.

For people who don’t drink, can you recommend a good non-alcoholic beer that still comes close to the taste of the alcoholic version?
Big Drop Lager is excellent and easy to find. I’ve also recently been impressed by West Berks brewery and its Solo pale ale. There are a lot of low and no alcohol beers on the market right now, many of which are really good. It’s an interesting and exciting part of modern beer which is developing at a huge rate and the quality that’s out there is reflecting this.

How do you collaborate with brands and which kinds do you really like working with?
A brand will typically get in touch to ask if I’d like some samples for review or if I’d like to join an event. Some brewers reach out to ask if I’d like a tour. This will then translate into social media posts and if there’s something there that really stands out, or if I’ve been to a brewery for a tour, then I’ll write about my experience and try to tell the story of that place/person/beer. I like working with folks who stay in touch and let me know of any news/new releases, etc. Being personable goes a long way.

For PRs looking to work with you and your blog/website, how would you prefer they approach you and with what kind of content?
I can be contacted via my website or social media channels and I’m open to ideas if a brand wants specific content. If there’s something there that appeals to me, and I think it’s a good for the blog, then happy days. The more info upfront, the better.

What other blogs do you check out regularly (whether beer-related or not)?
Beer Compurgation by Mark Johnson is one I read regularly. Mark blogs about all things beer and pubs (and sometimes chickens) and is well worth following.

I’m also a fan of Boak & Bailey for varied beer related content from tastings, to historical research to think pieces.

Chris Norman of The Ale Album blog is worth a read for anyone who loves music as much as they like beer, as he often pairs beers with albums. The albums always have stunning artwork, too!

Finally, Matt Chinnery aka The Half Pint Gentleman has just updated his blog and it’s a collection of great photos, travel pieces and tasty recipes.

The ‘number 1 dad’ badge goes to Dad Blog UK’s John Adams, our top dad blogger in the UK. Working for change when it comes to getting more men involved in childcare, John has been selected to work with LinkedIn as a Changemaker, and has been getting up at 5am every day since lockdown started to keep up with his childcare and blogging responsibilities.

John shares how he sees the longer-term impact of COVID-19 changing work and parental labour patterns and how else the pandemic has impacted his own schedule, beyond the early alarm calls.

How did you originally get started with writing about parenting?
When I started Dad Blog UK back in 2012, it was to highlight the casual sexism I faced as a man who had given up a career to concentrate on family and home. Unfortunately, I found myself having issues with some healthcare professionals and being accepted by mums was a challenge.

Over time I decided to broaden what I wrote about. Fatherhood and parenting are very much at the core of what I do, but I also write about motoring, men’s grooming, do occasional recipe posts, days out and so on. As time goes on, I am increasingly producing video content as well.

What’s your favourite thing to post about and why?
I really enjoy doing the Q&A series that I introduced last year. This is when I get someone with some interest in family or parenting to answer around ten questions on their specialist subject. A highlight of this series was when I interviewed Ziauddin Yousafzai, better known as ’Malala’s dad’. He’s such a nice man who has dedicated his life to improving educational outcomes for girls. It’s no surprise he raised such a fearless daughter. Ziauddin even sent my daughter a special WhatsApp message when he discovered she was studying Malala’s life at school.

I also like to write about issues that go under the radar. One of my best performing blog posts is one I wrote a couple of years ago about, I kid you not, male thrush. Inspired by this I recently did an interview with a sexual and reproductive health specialist about erectile dysfunction and that, too, has performed well.

How have you had to change your approach to blogging, or your content, during the COVID-19 crisis?
Oh, my word – I have had to change my approach hugely! Firstly, like many mums and dads I have been homeschooling my kids while also working. To fit in content creation, I am having to get up at about 5am every day. I don’t mind admitting that we’re now into month three of living like this and it has become tough.
Secondly, I would usually attend events or meet with people face to face to produce content. All those opportunities vanished overnight so I was left with some significant holes in my editorial schedule.

That said, with two school-aged children, COVID-19 has provided me with plenty of inspiration to write about issues such as schooling, how we have coped with lockdown and also our eldest child’s return to school.

That said, I have noticed that people don’t want to read a constant stream of COVID-related content. That’s quite understandable; I think people want a break from it. One thing I did that’s been enormously successful is to re-introduce a weekly photography blog post. I stopped doing this last year but while on my daily family walks, I would take my camera and post the resulting images to Instagram and my blog. I was reluctant to do this as it felt very retrograde but my visitor stats and feedback from my followers has been so positive the weekly photo post is here to stay for a while longer!

Will we see more men embracing being stay at home dads in the wake of necessary changes to co-parenting schedules during lockdown?
I do not believe we are going to see an increase in the number of stay at home dads because of the COVID-19 crisis. That said, we will almost certainly see a huge upswing in dads working from home and making a greater contribution to childcare and domestic chores. In a very short space of time, flexible and remote working has become normalised.

In addition to this, staff at all levels are having to homeschool and work from home. This has forced employers to wake up and accept the fact many of their employees have caring responsibilities away from the workplace.

We are probably not going to see people working from home five days a week forever. I suspect and hope most people will work from home two or three days a week or in some cases, the office may be a place they visit every fortnight or so. Tech enables us to work this way.

If we can cement these changes, it will hopefully lead to greater gender equality on the home front. The Fatherhood Institute is reporting the amount of childcare men do has rocketed up by almost 60% in just two months. That demonstrates how outdated and rigid our working culture was.

The great thing about being an influencer is that you can use your presence to effect change. I was recently selected to work with LinkedIn as a Changemaker. There are seven of us and we are all working to change the workforce for the better. There’s a mental health Changemaker, diversity and inclusion Changemaker, disability Changemaker and so on.

The focus of my Changemaker campaign is to make flexible working available to all mums, dads and people with caring responsibilities. I’m really proud to be a part of this campaign and I hope it leads to change.

How would you recommend parents currently struggling with working from home with their family duties deal with the difficulties?
First things first – do not even bother trying to replicate what happens at school. You can’t, especially if you are working as well.
As I said previously, I am feeling jaded after almost three months of this. If you need to just take a day off and go to the countryside with the kids for the day, do it.

There is also a point to be made here. This generation of kids are going through something no other generation has done. There’s quite rightly been discussion about the negative mental health impact and their education suffering.

These are all valid points, but these kids are going to have picked up all manner of soft skills and relationship skills. Their formal education may suffer, but informally, they are having a unique and possibly amazing experience. It’ll be interesting to see what the long-term impact is on them.

Best no-fuss stress-free family meal for busy times?
Erm, you’d be surprised how often my kids have been given super noodles for lunch on homeschool days. With fruit to make it balanced, obviously. Perhaps best move on to the next question…

How do you collaborate with brands and which kind of brands do you really like working with?
I collaborate with brands in many ways. I recently started producing content for flexible working website DaddyJobs.co.uk and carer community site FamilyCarersNet.

Sometimes I am asked to produce Instagram Story videos. Other times it may be a detailed blog post, although usually it’s a package of blog post and social media promotion. I have previously acted as a media spokesperson, doing radio days.

As for who I like working with – wow, that’s so hard to answer! As a parenting, family and lifestyle blogger I have broad interests from family tech and flexible working to grocery shopping and family cars. If it’s relevant to me and my audience, I’m interested in it.

For PRs looking to work with you and your blog/website, how would you prefer they approach you and with what kind of content?
Either email me or my agents Leigh Rodda or Kaye Freeman.

So long as the content you want is suitable for a family audience or of interest to parents or carers, then please get in touch. I am very experienced producing written, photographic and video content.

What other blogs do you check out regularly (whether parenting-related or not)?
I hate answering this question! There are so many I want to list but I’m going to draw a line. These are the people whose content I looked at over the past couple of days.

I do enjoy reading fellow Vuelio Top 10 daddy blog Slouching Towards Thatcham, plus Daddy & Dad and Dad’s Delicious Dinners. The Music Fatherhood Football guys are also doing amazing things. From the mums, Jo Middleton’s Slummy Single Mummy is as good as ever.

Over on Instagram, I don’t usually do inspirational stuff, but Adam Cam is brilliant. And TV presenter Nigel Clarke is doing interesting things with his weekly Dadvenger Instagram Lives.

If you have plans for the pub coming up (while staying safely-socially-distanced, of course), grab some quick recommendations for beverages to sup and sample from Beer Insider blogger Glynn Davis – ‘There’s always something new and exciting around the corner, especially now. Beer has never been so interesting and vibrant’.

How did you originally get started with writing about beer/the beer industry?
For ten years, I judged the annual pub awards for The Publican magazine and was then finally asked by the editor that maybe I should write some pieces for them!

What’s your favourite thing to post about and why?
Interviews with people who have an opinion and put forward interesting insights.

Any particular pubs or bars you’re really missing during the lockdown?
The Great Northern Railway Tavern in Hornsey, North London, and the Bohem Tap Room (I co-own Bohem Brewery).

What’s the first beer you ever tried, and do you still drink it occasionally?
Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Bitter. And the first album I bought was Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols. Sometimes you just hit the bullseye with the first dart.

Any beers or breweries that have stopped being produced/producing that you wish were still around?
No. There’s always something new and exciting around the corner, especially now. Beer has never been so interesting and vibrant. No need to look back.

For people who don’t drink, can you recommend a good non-alcoholic beer that still comes close to the taste of the alcoholic version?
None. It’s not my cup of tea. Actually, I’d rather have a cup of tea, or coffee.

For PRs looking to work with you and your blog/website, how would you prefer they approach you and with what kind of content?
Email is fine.

What other blogs do you check out regularly (whether beer-related or not)?
None with any great zeal. Certainly no other beer blogs. I spend more time looking at blogs about retail as this is the main subject that I write about. The sister site to Beer Insider is Retail Insider.