25 Top Food Blogs Of 2012

Jane Bruce

Molly Aronica|Sept. 17, 2012 3:22 pm EST

The world of food writing has been shaped and influenced dramatically by food bloggers. All it takes is a great idea, knowledge about a specific topic, and a publishing platform to join in the community. Right?

Click here for the 25 Top Food Blogs of 2012

Though that may be true, there is a reason why some food blogs are so successful while so many others remain relevant for only a small handful of the author's friends and family members. So what makes a great food blog? We think a fantastic food blog needs engaging content about specific subject matter, stellar photos, and a hefty dose of in-the-know opinion. Blogs that made this list demonstrate all these things with great finesse.

To put together a list of the top 25 food blogs, we waded through similar "Best Of" lists that other sources, including Saveur and Babble, published in 2012 — the compiled data included more than 180 food blogs. Then, we averaged the number of each blog's unique visitors throughout the past year using Compete.com's monthly statistics. We also looked at updated stats for those blogs that made our past two annual lists and added them to the mix.

But simply taking annual traffic into account doesn't necessarily provide an accurate depiction of the success and prestige of a given blog. So with that in mind, we looked at each blog's number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and Pinterest followers.

To arrive at the final 25, we factored in the number of average unique visitors (this accounted for 50 percent of each blog's score) and the data from the three social media components (which accounted for the remaining 50 percent). The blogs with the highest total scores made the cut.

The top 10 blogs remained pretty much the same as in 2011, with Simply Recipes taking the number one spot yet again (for the third year running.) However, the rest of the order changed significantly. Serious Eats moved down three spots to number five, The Pioneer Woman jumped up to the number two spot, and Cake Wrecks moved up from number nine to number four.

New additions in 2012 include Picky Palate, dental hygienist-turned-mom blogger Jenny Flake's guide for parents of gastronomically challenging children (and adults, too, for that matter). Another acclaimed blog among the food-focused, A Year of Slow Cooking, made this year's list as well. And Christy Jordan, the Southern charmer behind Southern Plate found her way into the mix as well.

Also new this year, we've given out six superlative awards to outstanding blogs in various categories:

Best Photography

Best Breaking News

Best Local Coverage

Best Recipes

Fastest Growing

Most Likely to Get a Book Deal

Longest Running

Curious about which other blogs made the list? Check out 25 that made the cut. Think we missed your favorite? Comment below.

The Daily Meal's 25 Top Food Blogs of 2012
25. Tastespotting
24. Rasa Malaysia
23. Pinch My Salt
22. Annie's Eats
21. Mommy's Kitchen
20. Year of Slow Cooking
19. Joy the Baker
18. Gluten-Free Goddess
17. Our Best Bites
16. Southern Plate
15. Two Peas and Their Pod
14. Eater
13. Steamy Kitchen
12. Picky Palate
11. David Lebovitz
10. Recipe Girl
9. Bakerella
8. Smitten Kitchen
7. 101 Cookbooks
6. The Kitchn
5. Serious Eats
4. Cake Wrecks
3. Skinnytaste
2. The Pioneer Woman
1. Simply Recipes