Real Baking with Rose

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Project: Real Baking with Rose

www.realbakingwithrose.com
Launched on November 9, 2005
Author / Book, Build Communities, Name Drop, We Blog

Blog:Read about this project on the blog

General Mills wanted to promote their top of the line Gold Label flour to active bakers. So they sponsored a blog to be written by Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of “The Cake Bible”.

As of 2007, the blog has been extremely successful. In the two years after launch, Rose has posted hundreds of items form new bread recipes to travel journeys with photos of wonderful foods from abroad. And there have been tens of thousands of comments from a wide range of food enthusiasts.

Susie’s design really captures Rose’s character and passion about baking, and was carefully crafted to promote shared discussion. The blog itself is built in Movable Type, and uses some third-party plugins to provide notifications to people so they can follow conversations made in blog comments.

Once the community reached a certain size, and many of the individual members became familiar and comfortable with each other, we opened up a forum that’s also been a great success. The forum is built in ExpressionEngine, and is the second integration of MT and EE that we know about (the Hop Studios Web site itself is the first).

We’re always excited to try new technology experiments, but we’re even happier to build new communities, and Rose’s blog qualifies on both counts.

Real Baking with Rose: Testimonial

"Until Gold Medal Flour/General Mills offered me this blog I had no idea what a blog was or could be. They suggested we call it either "real baking with rose" or "scratch baking with rose." With apologiies to Hop Studios endearing little duck logo the word 'scratch' immediately brought up the image of chickens in a back yard so "real" it became and went on to change my life on many levels.

The power of the blog to reach people all over the world, to dispense information and receive often immediate feedback, is staggering. It is as though little light bulbs of illumination have been popping all over the globe. bloggers are empowered to try new recipes and techniques and in turn share their findings and help others even with problems beyond baking and cooking.

At first all the work of response fell upon me and it seemed to be taking every waking hour but gradually the network of capable bakers widened and bloggers came to my aid and to the aid of other bloggers. As blog master Travis so eloquently put it: "The blog has created a community of bakers."

There has been much praise for Suzy's beautiful and workable blog and forums design. Travis keeps things running smoothly and helps immensely by inputting photos and recipe charts. My blog is indeed and thing of beauty and brings joy to many. I am blessed to have Gold Medal Flour as its sponsor and Hop Studios as it's manager."

Rose Levy Beranbaum