About The Pancake Princess
Ever wondered which of the 100,000,000 chocolate chip cookie recipes online claiming to be the best is TRULY the best? Me too.
The Pancake Princess is a blog dedicated to helping home bakers cut through the noise of online recipes to actually identify what works and recipes that match your individual preferences.
Since 2017, I’ve tested hundreds of popular baking recipes through side-by-side bake offs to find best-in-class baked goods, complete with data-driven feedback.
Basically, I got tired of sifting through hundreds of gorgeous recipes on Pinterest in hopes of finding a recipe that tasted as good as it looked.
Each bake off follows a standardized process:
- Testing 9-12 recipes from the same baked good category (yes, I make all the recipes myself on the same day!)
- Standardized ingredients and weighted measurements
- Controlled baking conditions
- Blind tastings
- 30+ independent tasters (including every day people)
- Structured scoring and data anlysis
My goal is to use freshly baked goods and crowd-sourced ratings to surface real results.
So far, I’ve tested hundreds of recipes to find the best chocolate chip cookies, the best pumpkin bread recipe, the most moist red velvet cake, tart lemon bars, gooey brownies, and many more baked goods.
Outside of the bake offs, I also love applying the knowledge I’ve learned to developing new recipes. My specialties range from celebration cakes to pancakes to tarts and cheesecake.
A few of my favorite recipes that I’ve developed include this carrot cake (featured on the cover of Southern Living!), these high-protein cottage cheese pancakes and this coconut caramel cake. If you’re gluten-free, you might enjoy this viral black bean chocolate cake (no one will taste the beans!).
About Erika
Hi, I’m Erika! I started The Pancake Princess in 2012 as a passion project and have spent nearly a decade testing and analyzing baking recipes–first as a hobby, and now as a full-time job. Originally from near San Francisco, I moved to Houston for college and stayed for 13 years! After the pandemic in 2020, I decided to make the move to my dream city: New York City.
But to take a few steps back–I graduated from college as an English major with dreams of going into journalism. I spent hours every day before and after work while working in corporate communications filming recipes on my apartment balcony and teaching myself how to bake from my favorite food blogs.
I went back to school to get my MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship and pivoted from communications to tech product management. Nine months after moving to NYC for a new product marketing job, I got laid off in late 2022 and took the leap into full-time food blogging/content creation. This is my dream job and I’m so glad you’re here!
While my baking experience is mostly self-taught, I staged under Kelly Nam, Michelin Pastry Chef of the Year, at Joomak Banjum in 2023 to learn about pastry production in a formal environment. I’ve also staged at bakeries around the world (including Houston, Amsterdam and Sydney, Australia) and all of that experience greatly influences my baking today.
Awards and Recognition
Since starting The Pancake Princess, I’ve been honored to be named the reader’s choice winner in the 2019 Saveur Food Blog Awards for Best Baking and Sweets and as a 2021 Cook of the Year for Southern Living.
My work has been featured by major national publications, including:
Wall Street Journal | Southern Living | Saveur | Buzzfeed | Taste Cooking | Huffington Post | Simply Recipes | Houston Chronicle | Daily Burn
Thank you so much for visiting!
Transparency and Editorial Policy
All bake offs are conducted independently by me.
Sponsored content, partnerships, and affiliate links are always clearly labeled. Sponsors do not influence rankings, testing methods, or results.
Get Involved
Bake offs are typically held in New York City and include 30+ volunteer taste testers. To receive invites to be a bake off taster, subscribe to my Substack newsletter.
To suggest future bake off topics, you can reach me at erika(at)thepancakeprincess.com.
You can also find me on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
