#FdBloggers - Get To Know

There's a lot going on in the world of Twitter right now. Everything from meet ups, bake alongs and Friday GIFs.

In a bid to get to know the people behind their blogs a little better, #fdbloggers host Loriley has devised a great plan to get up close and personal with everyone.

Besides this '#fdbloggers: Get to Know' tag, Loriley hosts a weekly Twitter chat on Thursdays to discuss everything from eating out, recipes and ingredients.

Find out more here.

And onto the tag, as nominated by my beardy pal Mike from The Bearded Bakery and Ala from This Particular.

I pinched this GIF Frankie made of me because that's what friends are for...

Name: Sophie

Blog: Sophie Loves Food

What was your reason for starting a blog?

I got into baking during uni and wanted a way of categorising all the photos and recipes I'd used. It wasn't actually until I left uni that I started blogging.

I'd been reading a few lifestyle and baking blogs and one day just thought, 'hey, I can do that'. It seemed like one of those silly ideas you don't tell anyone about. So I just told a colleague and my family.

The photos were awful, the blog design was awful, but I've stuck at it since 2012 and worked at improving everything gradually.

The biggest help was probably enrolling on a Food Writing course at Leiths. It gave me some confidence to start writing and also to meet other bloggers and people in the food industry.

In terms of photography. I like science and none of this fancy flowery nonsense. After working in a photo processing lab during school years, I went on to study a BSc in Digital Imaging, and specialising in Forensic and Biomedical Imaging. I'm more au fait with labs, non-visible spectrums and have even written a zillion words in a paper on sensor noise...if that's your bag ;)!

I may be able to give you the Fourier Transform of what each adjustment in Photoshop does (tell a lie, I've probably forgotten), but I'm not very patient with food styling and I hate the lighting in my kitchen.

Seeing as I spend most of my waking hours thinking about brownies, burgers and coffee it seemed like blogging about it was a natural progression.

What's the dish you're most proud of?

Without a doubt, brownies. I'll try to avoid being too smug but people do tend to get quite passionate about them.

I first made brownies in a baking class in 2013, they flopped big time. With a lot of perseverance and practice they started to improve.

Then along came a recipe that changed everything, here. With a few tweaks and secret additions its my go-to recipe and most favourite thing to bake.

What one kitchen utensil could you not live without?

My cast iron casserole dish. Besides sitting pretty on my hob at all times, I make a lot of one pot batch meals. Either to freeze or work my way through for work lunches during the week.

You're stranded on a desert island. What three ingredients do you take with you?

Chocolate, eggs and flour.

I had to think hard about narrowing this down. As long as I can make pancakes, scrambled eggs and brownies, I'm sure I'll be fine.

Who do you take your inspiration from?

Cookbooks and other bloggers.

You can't really have too many books and I love to flick through my cookbooks and plot what to make next. As I have such a sweet tooth, most are for baking. My absolute favourites being Konditor & Cook's and Dan Lepard's. I'd like to eventually get round to making every recipe in them

Bloggers are slowly infiltrating every nook of the internet so you're never far from a new recipe, ingredient or restaurant to try. I think its helped to make cooking more accessible to others, rather than being put off by the glossy pages of a professionally styled meal in a book.

What's your favourite social platform?

I probably spend more time scrolling through Instagram than any of the other platforms. I like seeing what everyone's had for breakfast, how many peonies people buy each week and all other the other clichés that it comes with, mostly.

Unless you're David Bailey, I think its pretty difficult to grow followers on it though.

Biggest disaster in the kitchen?

I can feel my boyfriend and family laughing at my kitchen breakdowns from just reading this!

I'm very particular and impatient at the same time which is always a loosing battle. If something doesn't go right, I'll start by just staring into thin air as an attempt to regain control. If I've not been able to rationalise myself in this time then, depending on levels of tiredness, I have been known to cry a few times...

Most recently, I made some brownies that were undercooked. They were meant to be a gift for someone so it was a true GBBO moment when they collapsed after taking them out of the baking tin.

Its probably for this reason that I enjoy those 'expectation v reality' Buzzfeed posts too much. Its always different in reality.

Favourite spot for coffee?

There's a few places I like in town: Notes, Timberyard, Flat White and Four Corners.

Favourite photo you've taken?

Either these Brooklyn Blackout cupcakes or hidden Oreo cupcakes.

There's always a battler for natural light. The Brooklyn Blackout cupcake were taken perched on the windowsill of my Mum's stairs. And the Oreo cupcakes were balanced on an ironing board in my hallway.

They got accepted onto Foodgawker so I'm happy with that.

What would you say is your most successful blog post and why?

My curly whirly brownies tend to get the most hits. I love receiving pictures when people bake them.

Now nominate three food bloggers you'd like to get to know more.

I nominate:

Persephone from Persephone H
Megan from Got to be Gourmet
Gianni from Across the Hogsback