• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Bake Offs
  • Recipes
  • Travel
  • About
  • Work With Me
  • Nav Widget Area

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
The Pancake Princess

The Pancake Princess

A baking blog curating internet recipes.

You're here: Home > Bake Offs

Bake Offs of 2018

by erika 10 Comments

What a year!

I technically started these bake offs in 2017 (with the epic chocolate chip cookie bake off, inspired by Skyler–the author of many of my beautiful Tableau visualizations–getting trapped in Houston by Hurricane Harvey), but I had no idea that I would have the energy (and you would have the enthusiasm) to keep these up to almost a once-a-month cadence in 2018.

In full transparency, I don’t make significant money from my blog. I make enough in ads to cover my hosting/web expenses, and partnerships with companies like Envy and Sunspire Chocolate help me cover the occasional grocery bill/ingredient run. But I’m still paying for most of my ingredients out of pocket and spending hours scraping the web, creating spreadsheets, spending entire days glued to the kitchen and hours crouching over crumpled pieces of paper and editing photos. Why? I don’t expect to make a career out of this. But the community of bringing together a lot of friends around a table, joy of a well-analyzed data set, satisfaction of seeing 9 (almost) perfectly baked cinnamon rolls lined up at once, and the thousands of supportive and enthusiastic comments and messages from all of you makes it worth it.

And since many of you have noted that it’s hard to find all of the bake offs in one place (for future reference, check the recipe index), here’s a blog post that will do just that.

Top 3, from left to right: 

  • best chocolate chip cookies
  • best sugar cookies
  • best cinnamon rolls

Second row:

  • best brownies
  • best banana bread
  • best brownies, part II

Third row:

  • best buttermilk pancakes
  • best pumpkin bread
  • best confetti cake

Fourth row:

  • best sweet potato casserole
  • best pumpkin pie
  • best vegetarian stuffing

And a bonus mini apple crisp bake off!

As always, suggestions for future bake offs are welcome! You can send them via email or via Instagram.

This next year, I’m thinking about introducing some vegan bake offs, as I was inspired to reduce my dairy consumption by this podcast episode (and reduce my seafood consumption, but that’s another topic). Maybe even some gluten-free bake offs for fun! We’ll see what 2019 holds, but in the meantime, thank you SO MUCH for following along and happy baking!

FacebookTweetPin20

Reader Interactions

Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




  1. cynthia

    January 4, 2019 at 7:07 pm

    Seriously, your bake-offs are the BEST thing about the internet. I get so freaking excited for every single one. And I echo everything everybody else has said!!!! THANK YOU YOU ARE INCREDIBLE.

    Reply
    • erika

      January 22, 2019 at 11:04 am

      Ugh Cynthia you are too good to me <3333333

      Reply
  2. Shiksha

    December 29, 2018 at 1:53 pm

    Thank you so much for all your efforts and amazing work in 2018. Can’t wait to read your vegan bake offs posts, would be so helpful, especially with the dearth and confusion around vegan recipes. Hope you can do some bake offs around egg free recipes as well.

    Reply
    • erika

      December 29, 2018 at 11:35 pm

      Hi Shiksha–so glad to hear that you’re excited for some vegan bake offs! I’m definitely excited about doing some egg free recipes, so keep an eye out! 🙂

      Reply
  3. JILL Q.

    December 28, 2018 at 4:05 pm

    Thank you so much for doing this! I was determined to find a “best sugar cookie” since I have a little boy who loves to bake and I was determined to find a sugar cookie that wasn’t just a vehicle for his desire for frostings and sprinkles (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I have fallen in love with the combo of King Arthur’s Flour cookie + America’s Test Kitchen glaze. It has been a life saver!

    Reply
    • erika

      December 29, 2018 at 11:34 pm

      So happy to hear this!!!!! I’m so glad you found an ideal combo for your sugar cookie needs. Thanks for the sweet comment Jill!!

      Reply
  4. Kristina D

    December 22, 2018 at 4:23 pm

    Thanks for all that you do. I really appreciate the comparison and break down. Keep up the great work. Happy Holidays to you!

    Reply
    • erika

      December 29, 2018 at 11:33 pm

      Thank you so much for reading Kristina!! I appreciate the kind words and happy holidays to you!!

      Reply
  5. Courtney

    December 22, 2018 at 3:27 am

    What you’ve done this year has been some of the BEST stuff I’ve seen you do yet! I’ve linked your Bake Offs to so many friends confused about what recipe to pick <3 Keep it up, bud!!! Can't wait to see all you do in 2019 🙂

    Reply
    • erika

      December 29, 2018 at 11:32 pm

      Ahhh Courtney thank you SO much!!!! Ughhhhh you are too kind, crying!! But thanks for the encouragement–how could I stop now with feedback like yours?? <33333

      Reply

Primary Sidebar

Baking recipe curator and tester.

I’m here to give you confidence that you are finding the recipe that’s right for you.

I test recipes side-by-side and use a data-driven approach to analyze and rank the “best” recipes and put it all together for you.

Get to know me.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

Subscribe to get the latest

Popular Now:

Best Lofthouse Cookie Copycat Recipe // The Pancake Princess Best Lofthouse Cookie Bake Off
Best Levain Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Bake Off
best lemon poppy seed muffin bake off Best Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Bake Off
Gingerbread Coffee Cake
Best Gingerbread Cookie Bake Off
Campfire Crunch Cookies
nine slices pecan pie Best Pecan Pie Bake Off
Best Parker House Roll Bake Off // The Pancake Princess Best Parker House Roll Bake Off

Instagram

The Lofthouse copycat bake off is now live on the The Lofthouse copycat bake off is now live on the blog!! I am excited to share that we found a recipe that comes very very close to the original (but is, of course, way better in my opinion!)

Link is in my profile/story and let me know which cookie you’re most excited to try! Or if you’re baking something else fun this weekend!

A huge thank you to the sponsor of this bake off, @imperial_sugar!! Their sugar products are just hands down the best—I use them in every single bake off! #sponsored #pancakeprincessbakeoff
The Levain dark chocolate pb copycat cookie bake o The Levain dark chocolate pb copycat cookie bake off is live 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 since my handwriting is getting progressively tinier and hard to see, tap the photo to see all the participating bloggers/recipes 🤗 which do you think looks the best?

This was a hard bake off to judge because pretty much all the cookies tasted like a peanut butter brownie ie. SUPER DELICIOUS 😩 thanks to the bloggers for all the work that went into developing these incredible recipes!! #pancakeprincessbakeoff #bakeoff #levain #levainbakery #levaincookies #chocolate #chocolatelab #cookies #cookiesofinstagram
Best lemon poppy seed muffin bake off is live!! Li Best lemon poppy seed muffin bake off is live!! Link in profile and tap the photo to see all the participating recipes/bloggers 🎊🎊

I always love to hear your guesses—based on looks alone, who do you think won?! 

And excitingly there is a bonus recipe at the end! I love lemon poppy so much that when a certain blogger I love (ahem @ful.filled) reached out with her intriguing looking recipe after the fact, I immediately tried it and reported my thoughts at the end of the post 💕
#pancakeprincessbakeoff #muffins #lemonpoppyseed #bakeoff
New year, new profile pic surrounded by cookies ✨

For those of you who like to plan, here’s a very tentative guide to what I’m envisioning for this year’s bake offs (if the world doesn’t blow up). Thank you, as always, for your constant enthusiasm and support for the bake offs! 💕💕💕 

🍪Jan: lemon poppy muffins, Levain choc/pb cookies?
🍪 Feb: cream cheese kolaches, loft house copycat cookies, flourless chocolate cake?
🍪 March: carrot cake
🍪 April: liege waffles??
🍪 May: tres leches
🍪 June: key lime pie 
🍪 July: tiramisu
🍪 August: oatmeal cookies
🍪 Sept: doughnuts 
🍪 Oct: shortbread?
🍪 Nov: Mac n cheese 
🍪 Dec: ginger molasses or chocolate crinkle cookies

Photo credit: @juliejulez.jpg 👹💕
{HOUSTON GIVEAWAY} Hi friends! If you’ve been f {HOUSTON GIVEAWAY}

Hi friends! If you’ve been following me for a little bit, hopefully you know how obsessed I am with @happyearthcompost and their mission to make composting more accessible and easy for the Houston community! Here is just a sneak peek of all the eggshells and lemon peels from the lemon poppy seed muffin bake off that are going straight into my Happy Earth compost bucket instead of the trash 🎊

I’m thrilled to be partnering with @happyearthcompost to do a giveaway for one lucky winner! Here are the deets:

🌱 you will win 2 free months of monthly pick ups from @happyearthcompost! You’ll get a little counter top bin (pictured here) and a larger bucket to keep outside (in the second pic)
🌱 must be located in Houston or Bryan/College Station to win
🌱 to enter, just make sure you’re following me and @happyearthcompost and tag a friend in the comments! Each comment is a separate entry
🌱 giveaway will close this Saturday (1/16) at midnight! GOOD LUCK!!!
@THEPANCAKEPRINCESS

Footer

Back to Top
Bake Offs
Recipes
Travel
About
Work With Me

Subscribe to get the latest:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Best Lofthouse Cookie Bake Off
  • Best Levain Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Bake Off
  • Best Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Bake Off
  • Gingerbread Coffee Cake
  • Best Gingerbread Cookie Bake Off

Privacy Policy and Terms of Service · © Pancake Princess · Site by Meyne