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About Sweetest Kitchen

Hello, and welcome to my kitchen, The Sweetest Kitchen. I have compiled a list of questions so that you may get to know me and my blog just a little bit better.

Last updated: January 8, 2017

Who are you?
My name is Jamieanne and I am 37 years old with 4 young children and an Australian husband. We live in Sydney, Australia, but I myself was originally born and raised in a cornfield in Indiana, USA.

What do you like to do besides bake and blog?
I love taking pictures of anything and collecting stuff. I have a wide variety of photos at Flickr you can browse through and I have 18 cameras – all but three are film cameras and most are vintage. I love them. My most favorite camera is my Zenit E, which is an early 1970s film SLR camera made in Russia.

I’m also huge fan of 80’s toys, like Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony. I have a few vintage ponies, and unfortunately all I have from my old Rainbow Brite collection is the big plush Starlight horse.

Before I had children I loved to read (and I’ll resume reading once my children are old enough to brush their own teeth and go to bed on their own, etc.). I love reading about astronomy and different theories as to how life began and how the universe came into being (science-related theories, that is). My most favorite author on the subject is Carl Sagan. And my most favorite books are The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.

Now that I have children, most of my time is spent trying to entertain them!  I am always feeding them, playing with them, taking them to school, buying them clothes, and, you know, all those things that moms do.  I do most of the cleaning (my husband cleans the bathrooms and I do the rest) and all the grocery shopping.  When I’m not doing any mom things, my very favorite thing to do (besides baking), is chatting with my friends over a cup of coffee.  In my free time, when I’m not baking, I’m usually listening to my favorite music (I’m a major Nirvana & Hole fan), browsing Foodgawker, researching recipes, reading my favorite blogs, checking out the latest foodie magazines or finding new stuff to buy!

Why did you start a food blog?
I originally started this blog in May 2008 at Blogspot and it was called The Cupcake Review – I only made cupcakes at that time. As I started to expand by baking other types of food I discovered that I needed more flexibility than what Blogspot offered. On March 3, 2009, The Sweetest Kitchen was born.

I started a food blog for a few different reasons, but mainly because I love food (especially sweets) and I love to share what I bake. I focused on cupcakes because I love combining different flavors and discovering new, interesting recipes. I also love cupcakes because they are super cute and they come in just the right size.

I don’t write a lot of my own recipes, but I generally take a recipe that I find online and alter it (if allowed) if needed. All recipes on my blog are credited to their respectful owners, or to the source, and a link is provided if available. If you find a recipe on my blog that is yours and it is not credited to you, please inform me so that I may correct it.

The watermark logo (the pink frilly circle with the cupcake, whisk and cherries inside) on most of my photos was hand-drawn by Lisa Orgler.

Thank you to Triton Graphics for help with my new logo (the blue plate full of donuts and eclairs)!

All photographs on my blog are my own, unless credited otherwise.

What kind of camera do you use?
All pictures prior to March 29, 2011 were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 5400. Pictures after that date are taken with my brand new and first ever digital SLR, a Nikon D3100, which the readers and fans of The Sweetest Kitchen helped me win in a photo competition! Some photos are minimally edited in Snapseed – brightness, contrast, etc.

What do you like about food?
I love all types of food for their different flavors and I think it is utterly amazing that one can turn a few separate, plain-looking pieces of food into a masterpiece of art and flavor.

I prefer baking over cooking. Baking is indeed a science and it can be temperamental and demanding of precise, exact ingredients, but I find the process of baking to be soothing and fun, and always a learning experience. To watch the ingredients come together in a batter, then bake up fluffy and moist is fascinating, and not only to me, but my children as well.

Have you always been interested in baking?
I certainly have. One of my earliest memories is of helping my mom sift flour for Christmas cookies.

Another of my earliest memories regarding food is how infuriated my dad would become when my mom always undercooked the spaghetti for dinner – he liked it just past al dente. We had a lot of spaghetti, so this happened quite often. I have always remembered this and because of it, I can cook a perfect pot of spaghetti (or so my dad says, as he always give me his approval for my spaghetti)!

Do you own a lot of cookbooks?
Unfortunately, I don’t. I borrow a lot of cookbooks from the library and then copy down my favorite recipes from them. I’ve copied quite a few recipes from Donna Hay, Gordon Ramsay and Martha Stewart, and from back issues of delicious. magazine.

The cookbooks I currently own, in no particular order, are Our Family Table by Julie Goodwin, Bourke Street Bakery by Paul Allam and David McGuinness, The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook by Alyssa Torey and Jennifer Appel, The Country Cookbook by Belinda Jeffery, Cake Pops by Angie Dudley (Bakerella), Sweet by delicious. magazine, Hello, Cupcake! by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack, Marion by Marion Grasby, The Sweet Life by Kate Bracks, Have You Eaten? by Billy Law, Zumbarons by Adriano Zumbo, The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook, Baking Illustrated, Tasty Express by Sneh Roy, Top With Cinnamon by Izzy Hossack, Simply Nigella by Nigella Lawson, Ruby Violet’s Ice Cream Dreams by Julie Fisher, and Wild Sugar Desserts by Skye Craig

Check out my Amazon store to purchase any of the above cookbooks, or any of my recommended cookbooks!

I am a regular reader of these foodie magazines: taste.com.au, delicious., and Donna Hay. I have a stack of these magazines on the coffee table that I am almost constantly browsing!

What kitchen tools could you not live without?
First of all, I could not live without my digital scales! I have a very good one that can weigh in kilograms/grams and pounds/ounces. Digital scales are absolutely essential in baking, especially when the recipe only gives ingredient amounts in grams or ounces.

Second of all, my whisk! I use a whisk for stirring together dry ingredients, whipping cream or eggs. I don’t know what it is about whisks, but I just love them.

Third of all, but definitely not last, is the ultimate kitchen tool – my KitchenAid mixer, Katie. I would be lost without her. I won Katie from Billy who blogs at A Table For Two and is a former MasterChef Australia 2011 contestant!

Where do you buy supplies and props for your blog?
I buy props from the Op Shop (i.e. Goodwill), Oz Backdrops & Props, Ruby Rabbit, Williams Sonoma, Emerald & Ella, Donna Hay and Kitchenware Direct. While I lived in the US, Bake It Pretty was my go-to shop. In regard to supplies, I am particular to certain brands. For vanilla extracts and pastes, I shop at Beanilla. For chocolate, I use Lindt. Other chocolate brands I’ve used are Green & Black’s, Whittaker’s and Nestle Plaistowe, but I’d usually choose Lindt when faced with options. For cocoa powder, I use Van Houten.

Who are some of your favorite chefs and food personalities?
I like Valli Little, Nigella Lawson, Donna Hay, Gordon Ramsay, Masaharu Morimoto, Alton Brown and I love Matt Preston.

Do you watch any food shows on TV?
Of course! I used to watch Top Chef while in the US, as well as Iron Chef Japan and Iron Chef America, and Hell’s Kitchen. I also liked Alton Brown’s Good Eats because of the way he explained the science behind how the recipe came together. I love Ace of Cakes as well! Now that I’m in Australia, I really like Masterchef.

What are some of your favorite foods?
My ultimate favorite food is sushi, followed by mostly any Italian pasta dish, then followed by curries, my favorite being butter chicken. My favorite dessert is basically anything with chocolate in it. And I love a good coffee more than anything.

Where’s the most interesting place that you’ve eaten?
I’d definitely have to say that my meal at the top of Centerpoint Tower in Sydney is the most interesting place I’ve been to eat. My husband, then-boyfriend, took me and my mother there in 1999. It was quite spectacular, as the restaurant actually revolves so that you get to see a 360° view of the city while you eat. The portions were so tiny however, that we left still feeling hungry, despite the fact that our meal had cost nearly $200.

The other most interesting meal I’ve eaten is in the middle of the Australian Outback.  I’ve never been an outdoorsy person, so this was a really challenging experience.  The main thing that really stands out in my memories is having bread that had been toasted a little bit too long, in a special manual hand-held toaster that you hold over an open fire.  My partner spread Vegemite, which I had never tasted before, on this very brown piece of toast.  Hands down, this was the most disgusting thing I had ever eaten!!!!  However, it has really stuck firmly in my memory, so I had to mention this!

Do you have plans to turn your love of food into a business?
Right now in my life I am a leisure baker. Having previously worked as a veterinary nurse and a sales associate in a fish and aquariums shop, my resume would hardly be appealing to any bakery! Eventually though, as my children transition into “big kid” school, I hope to obtain a position in a bakery.

Thanks for visiting my kitchen, I hope you have found something here that inspires you to get into the kitchen and bake. If you have any questions at all about a recipe, please leave a comment or send me an email. If you’ve made something you’ve seen here, leave a comment to let everyone know how much you liked (or didn’t like!) it, and be sure to snap a photo and share it with hashtag #sweetestkitchenblog. I hope to see you here again soon!

You may contact me via email at sweetestkitchen AT gmail.com, or via this contact form.

Mentioned Elsewhere

TasteSpotting | FoodGawker

I’ve been featured on Cupcakes Take The Cake for my…

Other Press…

Competitions I’ve won…

  • My Jupiter cupcakes won a National Geographic competition on Nov. 25, 2008
  • My matcha cocoa cupcakes won Iron Cupcake: Earth in December 2008
  • My matcha cranberry cupcakes won second place in Green Tea Powder’s matcha contest on Dec. 6, 2009
  • My avocado ice cream won ABC delicious. magazine’s Share the Love Facebook competition on July 10, 2013

 

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