Blake Makes

Yay! The 16 people (below the picture) are about to ’sauce’ it up! Thanks, Chef Bradley, for sharing your amazing creations with us! If you want to play (and get some free food), make sure you’re sooper and keep reading Blake Makes. There’s another giveaway coming soon!

Lo Carb Lean Mean BBQ Sauce

1. Lexi
2. Nina
3. Columbus Foodie
4. Carrie

Lean Mean BBQ Sauce

1. Sarah
2. Laurie
3. Kelly
4. Gretchen

Sweet Zing BBQ Sauce

1. Lindsey
2. Sarah
3. Allison
4. April

Lean Mean Ketchup

1. Paula
2. Carrie
3. Carrie
4. Amy

Congrats, winners! We can’t wait to see what you think (and what you make)!

..and now, anyone in the mood for a float? Stay tuned!

I am so pleased to announce that Blake Makes has been included on Alltop’s list of top food blogs on the planet!

I told you we were getting some attention (and we’re just getting started).

Apart from all of my Sooper Heroes’ blogs, the food blogs featured on Alltop Food are some of my favorites.

I’m honored to be in such esteemed (and popular) company.

We’re getting there, Blake Makers. This blog isn’t even a year old, and look at what we’ve been able to accomplish.

I can’t wait to see where we’ll be even six more months from now, not to mention this time next year.

Go see us on Alltop. There are a lot of blogs, but we’re there. Look in the middle column, 11 down from the top. Ta dah!

Update: For those Blake Makers who want some Amano now, they’ve offered our readers a 15% discount code for purchases made on their site good through the end of May. Comment on this post if you want the code and I’ll email it to you.

Hi. Just to be clear, the giveaway is this Thursday. This post is just the announcement so you can get to know Amano.

Yay for my (Bridget’s) first giveaway! Despite being a major chocoholic, I am picky about how I indulge in my addiction. Although I will admit to sneaking a Hershey’s Kiss now and then, I love nothing more than high quality dark chocolate that’s rich and smooth.

That said, the chocolate lover in me was so happy when I took my first bite of Amano Artisan Chocolate. It’s wonderfully dark, but I didn’t taste any strong bitterness as often happens when I have chocolates that are 70% cacao.

I tried three varieties of Amano chocolate over the course of a week, and I loved them all so much that they were almost all gone before Blake got to take photographs (what you see below is what was left and it lasted about 5 seconds after Blake snapped the last pic).

Amano is one of only around a dozen manufacturers in the U.S. that makes its chocolate from the raw, natural bean. It strives to make the highest-quality product possible by creating the chocolate in small batches with the best ingredients (After talking to one of the Amano owners, Blake said they even get out in the fields to help with the harvest from time to time). The hard work definitely pays off because this is some truly yummy chocolate!

We know what you love about Blake (and Bridget) Makes…the free food! Well, here we go again! FREE CHOCOLATE GIVEAWAY, Thursday, April 24.

Note: I know we seem to be giving away a lot of free chocolate lately (almost exclusively), but we decided to squeeze this one in before the weather gets too warm. We have tons of free food, but chocolate ships best in cooler temperatures (and gets twice as expensive to ship with cool packs in warmer weather). We would have moved on to our other great food finds, but I had to get Amano in your hands first. It’s THAT good.

So, this is how the giveaway will work this week. We’ll post Thursday morning, and you’ll have all day to express your love for dark chocolate. Fifty (50) lucky winners will each receive three (3) bars of Amano Artisan Chocolate! You lucky Sooper Heroes.

Qualifications:

1. You have to be a registered Sooper Hero
2. You have to love dark chocolate
   
3. You have to have a blog, preferably a food blog
   
4. You have to be interested in showing Amano some love if you enjoy your free sample by blogging about it (and linking to their site).

Today’s my dear Bridget’s (Beez’s) birthday. In addition to the flowers, the cookie cake and the many gifts (hundreds of Taco Bell Fire sauce packets - ha ha) I’m showering her with, I’ve also promised not to touch my computer today, or over the weekend.

I’m sure you had an idea before, but now you know how much time I spend online, on my laptop, with my eyes glued to its screen.

Tonight we’re making white-trash nachos (a guilty pleasure), eating cookie cake and watching the highly anticipated return of the Office and 30 Rock.

A promise is a promise, so I’ll see all you amazing people next week (and maybe a bit, just a bit over the weekend). Hum…she didn’t say anything about my BlackBerry. LOOPHOLE!

Ha Ha!

Happy Birthday, Beez! I love you more than…more than?…more than Blake Makes!

Hello, Blake Makers. Try this one on for size. Introducing my latest idea: Meet Your Makers…(Blake Makers, that is).

Meet Your Makers (MYM) is a blog network that I am currently building (to feed the appetite of my exponentially expanding community). Like what you see on Blake Makes? Great! Now, let’s do it for everything else we find interesting. Like…

Blake Bakes - A baked goods blog

Blake Chocolates - A chocolate blog

Blake Cleans - a “green” cleaning products blog

Blake Reads - a book club blog

Blake Travels - a travel blog

You may be saying, “It can’t be done. At least not by one man.” And, you’re right. That’s where you come in.

I want Blake Makes to be big. Not just big, but a behemoth colossus, a kingdom, a universe.

Fair warning, this idea is still in its early stages, but Blake Makes started as a wisp of thought, a twinkle in my eye. There’s about 6 such ideas coming soon.

Starting now, I’ll be recruiting voices for each blog you see listed above. I’m also open to suggestions.

Here’s how (I think) it will work:

• Someone will come to me and say, “Blake, I love wine. I’d love to blog about it.”
• Me: “Great. Let’s call it BlakeSips.com.”
• I’ll design and launch it.
• I’ll lead and direct content for the blog.
• You’ll write the content and moderate the community.
• Then, I’ll turn on the “(Secret) Community Growing Machine.”

The bigger the networks become, the more revenue potential they’ll have. We can start selling ads and sponsorships and more. When we do, I’ll do a revenue split with my contributors.

So, just to be clear. I don’t make any money from Blake Makes right now, so any volunteers would be just that. But, if you like the direction I’m heading, and have a shared vision for where I’m going, let’s talk.

It’s going to be big. Express your interest in becoming a maker here.

I love my Blake Makers. Y’all really rallied to help a Sooper Hero in need last week when I posted, and within hours the Sooper Hero’s problem had been resolved. Now, I’ve received another request, and it’s from a Typepad blogger.

Does anyone know how to add the social bookmarking chicklets to the bottom of posts - chicklets like add to del.icio.us, stumble upon, technorati, facebook, etc.?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m sure one Chicken Fried Sooper Hero will thank you, too.

I’m out of breath. I literally just got finished running around my house (like outside in my boxers)! WE JUST GOT PICKED UP IN SPRINGWISE!!!!

…And do you see the date? March 19!!! My BIRTHDAY!!!!

What is Springwise?

UPDATE: Thanks everyone! We got Nikki all squared away. See what a little love (and community) can do? 

Hello everyone! We’ve got a Sooper Hero in need of a little help. She’s trying to add a Blake Makes Badge to her Blogger blog. I use Wordpress, so I’m not as familiar with the Blogger blogging platform.

Can someone comment on this post with instructions for how to add the badge to a Blogger blog?

Thanks!

…let me refresh your memory. My great friend (that I’ve never actually met in person), Michael, was recently featured on Foodie NYC for what he did with my peanut butter dulce de leche and pork belly.

Way to go Mike!

Show Michael some love, will you? Comment on the Foodie NYC post to show them what we Blake Makers are made of!

Hello Blake Makers and Sooper Heroes (and all my daily new readers)!

A lot of you have been taking advantage of my Say It On Blake Makes feature. See this post for the first people who ’said it’ last time.

Before I let you all say it this week, I wanted to take a moment to publicly thank everyone who’s donated to support the PBDDL Campaign. Even though it’s been a few weeks, I’m still getting donations! Thanks! We’re at 95%, so I’m just beaming! If you participated in the PBDDL Giveaway and would like to donate, show us some love!

Also, we’re taking a week off this week. The Tuesday giveaways take a lot of work, but I don’t want to wear you guys out, wear ourselves out, and just plain get too much of a good thing. We’ll be back next week with something yummy! And I just got confirmation last week on a totally ‘tubular’ giveaway. (More clues to come [and sprinkled throughout].)

YOU Say It On Blake Makes:

Nikki says “So most of my readers should now know about BlakeMakes. If you have not yet checked out his site, you might want to SOON and get in on the fun! Become a Sooper Hero and you won’t miss a beat!”

“I received my free jars of Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche last week and took some time deciding what to make with them. Finally, I used one jar yesterday when making dinner for me and Ben. I had some ham to bake and thought a nice sweet glaze would be perfect to balance out the ham’s saltiness. Boy, was I right! (A first for me!)”

Natalie says it with a picture:

C B says “Dulce De-Stressor Cupcakes: Just wanted to share my PBDDL cupcakes via my blog link! Thanks so much for hosting this giveway! I had a great time! Hope I win the next one. I promise to “bake” something amazing! ::wink::”

Erica says “You Scream, Ice Scream, We All Scream for PBDDL Ice Cream!”

Natalie says “Mmmmmm…..”

Carrie says “Sucre Reviewed: I just put up my post about the Sucre chocolates. Please go check it out!”

Becca says “TCHO- The latest from Blake Makes: I received a package in the mail today. I knew what it was immediately. The latest free food giveaway from Blake Makes. I was thrilled when I was one of the fifty people to receive this particular giveaway. Chocolate.”