Recipe blogs: The life story you must scroll through before finding out how much cinnamon to use in carrot cake

I love food blogs. I really do. They’ve fed me more dinners than my own motivation ever has.

But let’s be honest, sometimes finding the actual recipe feels like a side quest in a video game.

“You seek the secret of carrot cake? First, brave warrior, you must journey through the Tale of Grandma’s Kitchen Curtains, 1964–1992.”

The epic preamble nobody asked for

You came for a recipe. You stayed for a memoir. A recipe blog never just gives you, “Here’s the carrot cake, cinnamon: 2 teaspoons.” No.

It starts with:

“Carrot cake has always been special to me. When I was a little girl, my grandmother and I would walk through the farmer’s market every Saturday, stopping to admire the root vegetables…”

And suddenly you’re five paragraphs deep in a seasonal ode to carrots, complete with a mini history of root vegetables dating back to Ancient Rome.

Do I love a good story? Yes.

Do I want it when I’m holding a whisk in one hand and a bag of flour in the other? Less so.

The parade of unnecessary photos

Next come the photos. So many photos. Carrots on a wooden board. Carrots mid-peel. Carrots next to a rustic linen napkin, softly lit as though posing for Carrot Vogue.

Look, I get it. Food photography is beautiful.

But do I really need six separate shots of cinnamon being poured into a teaspoon? It’s cinnamon, not the Mona Lisa.

By the time I scroll past the 14th glamour shot of butter melting in a pan, I’ve forgotten why I came here.

Am I baking? Am I redecorating my kitchen with rustic cutting boards?

The ads… oh, the ads

Recipe blogs are where popup ads go to breed.

Want to check ingredient quantities? Sorry, first you must close an ad for car insurance, a popup video about cat food, and a sidebar about “One Weird Trick to Regrow Hair.”

And just when you think you’ve closed them all, the page jolts because a new banner ad loaded halfway through.

Congratulations: you’ve lost your place and are back at the paragraph about Grandma’s curtains.

The Jump to Recipe button (a modern miracle)

Let’s take a moment to thank the unsung hero, the Jump to Recipe button.

This tiny rectangle is a beacon of hope. A promise that, yes, you can skip the memoir about last summer’s farmer’s market zucchini festival and go straight to the part you need: 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 3 cups shredded carrot, bake at 180°C.

Without it, many of us would still be scrolling through the tragic love story of Linda and her sourdough starter.

But here’s the twist: I don’t actually hate it

Here’s the thing, as much as I mock, I sort of get it. Bloggers pour their personality, their stories, their family recipes into these posts.

The long intros and nostalgic tangents? They’re trying to connect.

They’re also (whispers) doing it for SEO. Google loves long posts. Google does not love, “Here’s the recipe, bye.”

So yes, the 2,000 words of carrot memoir are partly to make sure the recipe actually shows up in your search results.

Without them, you’d never have found it in the first place.

The semi-serious point (served warm)

Recipe blogs are a balancing act. Too much story, and your readers grumble. Too little, and your post sinks into the internet void.

The sweet spot is somewhere between “Grandma’s entire biography” and “ingredients slapped on a napkin.”

At the end of the day, the stories make it human. They remind us food isn’t just about measurements and oven times.

It’s about memory, culture, comfort. Even if we complain while scrolling, maybe we secretly like that little slice of humanity before we get to the cinnamon.

Final thought before we eat

So yes, I will complain about the 2,000-word saga of carrot cake. I will roll my eyes at the 14 photos of butter melting. I will rage at the auto-playing ad for a new air fryer.

And then, when I take a bite of perfectly spiced carrot cake, I will sigh and think, “Worth it.”

(But please, for the love of flour, keep the Jump to Recipe button.)

Want your own blog posts that engage immediately rather than make you wait? I have a recipe for that.