BlogHer is the industry leader for helping bloggers and content creators grow their brands. Where Woman Cook magazine is no longer in publication. This interview was with BlogHer for the August 2014 edition of Where Woman Cook’s special magazine feature “The Men We Crave”.
Blaise Doubman “Blaise the Baker” is a Foodie / Home Cook / Baker / Writer / Cookbook Hoarder and can be found online at http://blaisethebaker.com
Bio
Blaise Doubman started cooking (and baking) in the kitchens of his mother and grandmother when he was only seven years old. He quickly became interested in the techniques and stories behind each recipe, and still remembers trying to connect the recipes with family memories and family history. He is also a collector (hoarder) of cookbooks – his collection numbers in the thousands.
Blaise graduated from high school and excelled in English, science and home economics (despite almost blowing the building up by leaving the gas to the stove on with no flame). After graduating from Knightstown High School, he enrolled at Indiana University East to pursue a degree in English. Several years later, he discovered a passion that he had put aside for food and food writing, and started writing privately and developing recipes. Later changing his major to Humanities, he graduated with his Bachelor’s Degree (will graduate December 2014).
He worked several odd jobs during the time such as working at “Cracker Barrel” (learning their secrets to their homemade dumplings, buttermilk biscuits and several popular desserts), “Red Lobster” (eating more cheddar bay biscuits than was allowed at the time, and meeting Aretha Franklin and her entire family one evening), “Sears” (where more than once he sold a pair of washers instead of a washer / dryer pair) before finally settling in at the “New Castle Henry County Public Library”. Blaise was a Librarian for over five years (expanding their cookbook collection by thousands of books) before his position was terminated.
Timing was everything because soon after his grandmother fell ill, and with the help of his parents, Blaise became one of the primary caregivers. Given the circumstances, he decided to follow a dream he had always had – to write a cookbook and to start and develop a food blog.
Blaise started “Blaise the Baker” food blog on Valentine’s Day 2014 with a handful of subscribers. Skip ahead just 5 months, and “Blaise the Baker” has thousands of subscribers and offers not only recipes, but cookbook reviews, food tips, and a “Ask Blaise the Baker” feature where people write in their food questions to get an answer directly from Blaise.
His, as yet untitled, cookbook is in the early finishing stages and is being collected and formatted to be sent out to a few interested book publishers.
Blaise hopes to continue expanding his food blog (with professional chef interviews, a world traveling “international food” feature, a “Pop Up Shop” bakery, and a YouTube channel that is in the works). He also hopes to continue his love for food writing, recipe developing and sharing his love for food with the people he loves.
Interview
Blaise Doubman is known as “Blaise the Baker” online because of his popular food blog with the same name. His blog contains recipes (both sweet and savory) as well as cookbook reviews and an “ask” section where anyone can email in their food related questions for an immediate answer. Blaise is currently working on a cookbook that shares his love of family, preserving family recipes, and memories.
I met up with Blaise (over the phone) one day in June and the following is part of our conversation about all things food related including his favorite ingredients, recipes, cookbooks, chocolate, his love and passion for butter and sugar and keeping family memories intact with not only the recipes shared, but the food.
BlogHER (bold)
Blaise Doubman (regular)
Hello Blaise! How are you today?
Great! Excited to get the interview started…
Me too! First question – what are you testing today?
(laughs) I’m testing chocolate fudge brownies. I’m making 2 batches. One with instant coffee granules added, and once without to see if it makes a difference, which I think it will! I’m excited to see!
I have a feeling you have tested this before. (laughs)
You’ve seen it on my blog already? (laughs) Yes I’ve tested this theory a few times, but it’s always good to double check…
What exactly does the addition of the coffee add to the chocolate?
I’m not exactly sure. It just really intensifies the chocolate flavor, without tasting any of the coffee. It’s a trick that I picked up from my Grandma years and years ago.
How many times a week do you recipe test?
It depends on what is going on in my personal life, but usually about 4-5 times a week.
Who eats all that food!? (laughs)
I do! All of it! (laughs) No, not really. I taste, believe me, and eat my fair share (sometimes more) but a lot of it gets passed around to my family and neighbors.
Lucky neighbors!
Well, that depends. Sometimes it’s not as glamorous as it seems. Such as the weeks when I was testing condiments and steak sauce marinades! (laughs)
What made you want to start a food blog, and eventually a cookbook?
Well, I had just lost my job and didn’t know what to do or where to turn. My position was terminated pretty quickly after the new supervisor came in. I thought about going out and grabbing any job I could, but then realized that I had an opportunity here that not everybody has. I could really stop and focus on my life and what I wanted out of it. Really figure out my passions and what I wanted to do. I thought for about a year (all while still food reading and recipe testing) and then decided I wanted to do something with my two greatest passions – writing and food. I started my food blog one year (to the day) that my position was terminated. I then decided to expand and write the cookbook that I had always wanted to write. Then I realized something – I already had begun! I had been subconsciously working on my cookbook for years.
What do you mean subconsciously?
I mean, I had been writing it for years and didn’t really know it. I had pages and pages full of recipes and notebooks full of food memories and stories that my Grandma had told me over the years. The cookbook had been in the works for awhile, and I didn’t even know it.
Wow! It was meant to be…
Yes, it really was.
How will you publish your cookbook? Are you thinking of self-publishing?
With a miracle! (laughs) No, I really hope to have it published by a publishing company. I have several friends in the publishing field, as well as the food writing field, that I have met online through various forms of social media. They are helping me out and giving me ideas, names and numbers to contact.
If your cookbook is published – then what?
It will be one of the happiest moments of my life! (laughs)
(laughs) I’m sure it will be. Do you have plans for more food writing in the future? More cookbooks perhaps?
Absolutely! I have hundreds and hundreds of more recipes and ideas I’m wanting to try and test out. This time around I have over 150 recipes. I had to stop there or I would be writing and testing for years! I want to put out what I have so far. The rest I hope to have published in a book, or dare I say books plural, in the future. I would love to be a cookbook author. Recipes, and cooking in general, evolve over the years. There really isn’t one particular way to do something. I’m wanting to show this to people.
I never cooked myself because it seemed so much work.
And you never had the time, the ingredients, or the interest? (laughs)
Well…yes (laughs)
I have solutions to all of those problems… And once you get to cooking and being in the kitchen you will find it’s a stress reliever and something fun! Most people, who don’t think they like cooking, are just doing it wrong…
(laughs) I like that! What would you say makes you different from the other food bloggers out there?
My passion. I’m not sure every food writer has the passion, or the experience, that I have. I really think that’s what draws me apart from them. I don’t get paid for my blog. It’s something I do for free. I don’t have to worry about pleasing my boss, or a certain restaurant, or a certain up and coming chef by giving them a good review. I’m not a professional chef or even a professional baker! I’m a home cook – which helps me relate to people. I cook, bake and review my thoughts and my way. I cook and bake the way my grandma and mom taught me. Cooking is a dying art. It really is! Tradition needs to be kept, in the form of recipes, techniques, ingredients and flavors. I think it’s important for us to not only keep the traditions and recipes of the past, but to make and leave new ones for the future!
Good philosophy! Now, a couple of random fire questions. Favorite food?
Chocolate.
Favorite ingredients?
Very passionate about using sugar and real butter, nothing fake.
Cooking or baking?
Baking.
Night-time reading?
Cookbooks.
Pleasure reading?
Cookbooks.
Anything you collect?
Cookbooks. (laughs) I have thousands.
Cookies – soft and chewy or crisp and crunchy?
Both.
Favorite recipe on your blog and why.
Peanut butter cookies with turbinado sugar because it’s versatile. You can make it with or without the turbinado sugar or you can press a Hershey’s Kiss in the middle to create a “blossom” or even drizzle the entire cookie with white chocolate. It’s also an excellent recipe to cut in half or even triple for a party.
Finish this sentence… “In 10 years I see myself…”
Oh my (laughs) I usually don’t make that many plans for the future, instead I go with the flow and let life pick me – which has usually worked out. Let’s see – in 10 years I see myself as a bestselling cookbook author of several books with a cooking show on the Food Network and a column in the New York Times… (laughs)
Aiming high! (laughs) Good goals though. Favorite color?
Blue.
Main motivation for recipe developing?
Greed.
Biggest downfall?
Gluttony.
Biggest positive about you?
Big heart, which can sometimes be a downfall though.
What do you want people to say about you?
That I am nice, giving, warm and funny.
What do people really say about you?
That I’m funny, high strung and a big eater. (laughs)
(laughs) Thank you so much for your time Blaise. I look forward to seeing where this journey takes you. It’s been a pleasure.
Thank you. I’m excited to find out as well. Thanks again.
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