2016: Year in Review and Top 10 Posts

Well, it's been quite a year for me - how about you?

2016 had some major highlights - I got married in June, went on honeymoon to the Galapagos Islands and I gained a niece - my sister had a baby in November. On a sadder note we lost my grandfather this year.

From a blogging perspective, I really enjoyed sharing the details of my wedding with my readers - you can see photos from the day here.

 

My sister and I made my wedding cake between us (we didn't know she was pregnant when she offered to do it originally!) and I loved the way it turned out.

 

Mrs Cowe and her cow cake

This mascarpone orange streusel slice from the movie Burnt was probably the most complicated thing I made all year; I won't be doing that again in a hurry!

 

 

I was very proud of these Halloween pumpkins I carved in October:

 

 

I was even more proud that I managed to do sugar-free September!

 

So are you curious to see what my top ten most popular posts were in 2016? I certainly was, so looked back through the stats and these are the ones that had the most hits. Check them out if you didn't see them - and let me know if you had any particular favourites on my blog in 2016!

 

In reverse order:

 

10: Slimming World Cauliflower Rosti Pie. View the post.

I've found that recipes labelled with Slimming World do quite well, even though I am not actually counting Syns or following Slimming World any more.

 



 

9: Eton Mess Cupcakes. View the post.

I made these for a summer barbecue and they were very popular.

 

 

8: Mary Berry's Lemon Drizzle Traybake. View the post.

Mary Berry is always popular these days thanks to the Great British Bake Off, and if memory serves I made these right before the episode of GBBO where the contestants were asked to make a drizzle cake, which I think led to people searching for this recipe.

 

 

7: Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes. View the post.

These mimic the flavour of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and contain a whole Ferrero Rocher baked inside the cupcake!

 

 

6: A review of Provena Gluten-Free products and a giveaway. View the post.

The popularity of this post surprises me a bit but it was retweeted by Provena and everyone likes a giveaway!

 

 

5: Chocolate Easter Cupcakes. View the post.

These were very simple but tasted great and decorated with Mini Eggs which are always popular.

 

 

4: Floating Anti-Gravity Mini Egg White Chocolate and Lemon Cake. View the post.

I used Lakeland's anti-gravity cake kit to make this cake, which was amazing. The cake itself was delicious too.

 

3: Slimming World Creamy Coriander and Minted Chicken. View the post.

As I said before, Slimming World posts are popular. This is a great dinner recipe that's really easy to make.

 

2: The Alphabakes Challenge, April 2016. View the post.

Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and I ran the Alphabakes challenge for over 4 years, and are currently taking a break. This was one of the final times we ran the challenge and the letter this time was T. It didn't attract that many entries but a lot of people have obviously visited the post and looked at the recipes!

 

And at number one, the most popular post on Caroline Makes in 2016 was....

 

1: my amazing Jaffa cake cupcakes. View the post.

These cupcakes taste just like eating a Jaffa cake - they have a real Jaffa cake at the bottom, then a sponge cake the texture of a Jaffa cake base, an orange marmalade filling, chocolate frosting and a mini Jaffa cake on top. They were so good!

 

 

 

So that in a nutshell was the year for Caroline Makes - I hope 2017 is another good one!