Happy birthday to Kitchen of Kiki

Birthday cake in form of Danish lagkage

Happy birthday to my little blog !!!! 

Today my blog about activities in my little kitchen, life in my "park" and with guest appearance of the local star Hannibal the Cat becomes 3 years old :-)

It is incretiable how fast time is running ! When I wrote my very first blog post, I was having no idea, where it would take me and perhaps you readers on the other side of the screen. The main driver for me is to relax my mind (so no mindfulness here !!!) as well as having fun being busy in my kitchen creating. Sometimes even being slight maniac baking away for an afternoon tea for my good friends.

Within the last two months I have started implementing two new ideas, which I am planning to make a regular part of the virtual life of my blog.
The first thing is a welcome greeting to the "new" calendar month with focus on interesting food of that particular month.
The second thing is, that a real ice cream machine was found a place in my little kitchen, so I am planning to make ice cream every month, a process which will involve you upfront in the selection process in form of an ice cream election. In September you selected vanilla ice cream, so in October I made two different vanilla ice cream in form of home-made vanilla ice cream a la "Country Cook´s Kitchen" and ultra indulgent vanilla ice cream "artisan style". However, here in November I have already decided, which type of ice cream I would like to create, so here you have no saying at all.

Again I have decided to celebrate this third blog birthday with a give-away competition :-)
Your contribution is to leave a comment, either what you really like about this blog and/or where you could see room for improvement/development. You should also state in your comment, if you have a preference for Christmas liquorice or liquorice marzipan, as I have two small gifts for you to choose from. I will at the end of this month draw two lucky winners among your comments.
You can leave your comment in either Danish or English depending on your preferred language.

Last year I received one comment, so if this trend continues, you have can a very good chance of actually winning somethings based on leaving a comment to this post :-)

The winner will be selected at random from all comments received full-filling the above mentioned requirements. The winners will be notified within 1 week after the closing date. The price is as stated, so no cash alternatives are available. This give-away is open to EU + Nordic countries entrants only.

The closing of this blog birthday give-away is Sunday 24 November 2013 at 20.00 (CTE time zone).

Hannibal the Cat laying on the kitchen floor

And as usual yet another update on my KPIs for the blog, which look like this (In my professional life colleagues and managers are discussing Key Performance Indicators on a regular basis):

Review day: 13 November 2013 - 3 year birthday
Start day - first posting: 13 November 2010
Development on "Hjemmebagt": 73 recipes - 32 accomplished = 41 recipes to bake
Amount of cooking books in my kitchen: 58 books
Page views: 94847
Publish posts: 711 incl. this
Followers: 15
Blogs followed: 15
Top blog posts during these three years:

1. TUC cake
2. Dinner at"Mad hos Mads, Horsens
3. Tea shopping at Kusmi in Paris
4. Christmas Calendar Door 9/2011 - Christmas Aquavita
5. Meeting some Danish food bloggers in REAL life
6. Christmas Calendar Door 7/2011 - Baked marzipan confect
7. Dinner at Belle Epoque, Nykøbing Mors
8. Paleo (stone-age diet) chocolade cake
9. The ultimate strawberry cake - Strawberry cake version 5.0
10. Lønnestræde Kir Royal

So there has been some movements, but two out the top 3 blog posts seems to be impossible to change, as they remain the same posts for the last 2 years (the TUC cake and shopping for Kusmi Tea in Paris). However, three blog posts from 2013 have been popular enough among your readers to make into the overall Top 10 list in form of "Paleo (Stone-age diet) chocolate", which made into the overall Top 10 (being a number 8) within a time frame of 1 week, eating at Belle Epoque and off casue the ultimate "The ultimate strawberry cake - Strawberry cake version 5.0", a cake which took me two years to fine-tune to perfection.

So if I should have a description of you as blog reader of "Kitchen of Kiki" based on the overall top 10 list  I would say that:

• you like me has a "sweet tooth" towards cakes (3 posts are cake recipes)
• you like to drink tea and you are a keen fan of Kusmi tea (like I am)
• you like to make home-made things for Christmas (2 posts)
• you like to eat at restaurants (2 posts)
• you are champagne lady (like I am)
• and finally you like to meet new people with similar interest (1 post)

Among the top 10 post written within the last year, since the blog turned 2 years old you will find:

1. Dinner at Belle Epoque, Nykøbing Mors
2. Paleo (stone-age diet) chocolade cake
3. The ultimate strawberry cake - Strawberry cake version 5.0 - Tea Time Treat
4. Stone age (Paleo) bread 
5. Bergamot-orange jam for Tea Time Treat 
6. Rugkiks - rye bisquits with cumin (from Hjemmebagt) 
7. Rhubarb cordial -easy to make
8. Skovtursmuffin - picnic muffin for Tea Time Treat 
9. Curry with chicken, edam beans and carrots
10. Tartes aux pommes for Tea Time Treat  & Eating yogurt in New York  

So describing your interest during the last year as blog reader, I would say:

• you have maintained your "sweet tooth" towards cakes (3 posts are cake recipes)
• you are quiet fond off the virtual monthly Tea Time Treat (4 posts have been a part of this specific blogging event)
• you like to eat "Stone-age" food (2 posts), which I find interesting to try out, even though I do not follow this diet regime
• you maintained your desire for dinning at restaurants (2 posts)
• you like home-made jam, home-made biscuits and a good home-made curry (1 post each)

Is it quiet interesting to see, how the majority of the most popular blog posts are related to cake baking/creation. Also my participation in the amazing blog event Tea Time Treats has a huge influence on the viewing of various blog posts, which suddenly turns into be extremely popular, as four of the top 10 posts have been a part of this specific virtual event.

Page view per country:

• Australia: 1%
• Canada: 1%
• France: 1%
• Norway: 1%
• Portugal: 2%
• Germany: 4%
• UK: 4%
• Russia: 6%
• USA: 19%
• Other countries: 27%
• Denmark: 34%

I have also noticed, that I have more and more readers coming from out-side Denmark, where USA accounts for this growth in non-Danish readers together with Russia, Germany and UK. I find it amazing, that I have readers around the world, which perhaps are grabbing some inspiration from my little kitchen. You are more than welcome inside for a virtual cup of tea :-)