Name: Ilan
Blog name and URL: IronWhisk – www.ironwhisk.com
Where were you born? Israel
Where are you living now? TorTonto
Why did you start your blog? The first real question and I’m already stuck... yipes. I started my blog because I wanted to document my progress. I wanted to be able to look back at what I did a year ago and look at what I did today and say “look, I haven’t regressed that much”. I also wanted to improve my photography. When I took my first picture of food it was really awful. You can’t imagine how bad it was. I wanted to improve, and the only way to improve was to practice. So, I practiced.
How did you decide on your blog name? To be honest I didn’t really decide on the name. I came up with some ideas (all terrible, really, the best one probably had every letter of the alphabet at least once) and shared them with my friends. They were pretty impressed about how bad my ideas were. Then they gave me their idea, IronWhisk. I went with it. Later, I realized that iron rusts but it was too late and so.. well.. yeah.
What do you blog about? I mainly blog about desserts but I also throw in a bit of savoury stuff every once in a while. I also blog about my adventures as a 16 year old food blogger and the strange things that happen to me.
What post are you most proud of and why? I’m really proud of the in-depth croissant tutorial I wrote a couple of months ago. I had step-by-step photos for the entire process and had instructions on how to make filled croissants. I really like the photography in it because I usually struggle with taking photos while making something, and so I generally avoid it, but this time I didn’t and it turned out great! Funny story about that post – someone tried to follow the tutorial and didn’t get the result they wanted. They asked me what they did wrong and I troubleshooted with them for a while. I eventually found out that they skipped the entire doughmaking process and just bought some dough from the store. http://www.ironwhisk.com/2012/08/french-croissants/
Which post do you wish received more love and why? This is a pretty close one between my bamboo cake and my post about trompe l’oeil soft-boiled eggs. Trompe l’oeil basically means “deceives the eye”. This post didn’t get a lot of love but I just think it’s so neat! You see, they were actually hollowed out eggs with lemon curd & lemon pudding with cinnamon cake for toast – not soft boiled eggs. Perhaps people thought they were just soft boiled eggs and didn’t bother to scroll. http://www.ironwhisk.com/2011/11/saturday-morning-breakfast-eggs-with-toast/
Which post’s success surprised you and why? The popularity of my mallow cookie post really surprised me. I created a recipe to imitate something that I tasted and came up with some awesome results. I didn’t expect them to take off like they did though simply because I didn’t really expect any of my posts to become popular. They’re snicker doodle cookies, topped with homemade marshmallow cream, and dipped in dark chocolate. They’re really tasty though so it makes sense I guess. http://www.ironwhisk.com/2012/07/mallow-cookies/
What is one (non-kitchen) gadget you can’t live without? I love all my gadgets. I could not choose one over the other. I could probably live without the Rubik’s cube solving robot I built though (probably – unless I need to solve a Rubik’s cube for my life).
What is one kitchen gadget you can’t live without? A whisk, for obvious sentimental reasons.
Favourite food, care to share a recipe? I really love crab legs with melted garlic-butter. There’s this all you can eat buffet near me where you can eat all the crab legs you want. Filling up on only crab legs is standard there.
What else should we know about you that may or not be in your “About Me” page? Hmm.. I tried to make it pretty thorough but you should also know that I make a lot of puns and strange jokes that no one understands. Did you get that one I just made?
What makes your blog unique? I think what’s so different about my blog is me. You can’t get me anywhere else! Plus, I’m 16 so I think maybe people find it interesting to see what I can do at my age. EDIT: I was browsing through previous answers to this question and apparently a lot of people say it’s because their unique (apparently not?). Alright. New answer is that.. um..
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I am so impressed with the writing and photography on Ilan’s blog. Thank you for intoducing him.
Wow, Great blog! Thanks for featuring it.