The LTF Philosophy
The Love Thru Food philosophy is to embrace connection made through the ideating, making, enjoying, and sharing of food. LTF embraces the ideas of reciprocation and balance. Too often, bakers and cooks are the only ones saying, “Food is my love language.” But, love languages are a two-way street — a delicate balancing act of giving and receiving. With the recipes, articles, and reviews provided here, I hope you’ll receive this food content with joy and remember that this website itself comes from a place of love. If you want to share that love with your closest friends, relatives, co-workers, and anyone else, let them know that it’s okay to say “Food is my love language,” even if they’re not the ones making the food. At LTF, we tell people that eating food and giving feedback — gratitude, critique, mmh‘s and yum‘s, gasps and laughter — is not only essential, but it’s also enough.
Who's this Dillon guy?
Hehe, hi! My name is Dillon Evans (he/him). I live in Georgia, USA with my partner. I love early-AM cycling classes, watching anime and food cinema, chocolate, wine, and traveling.
I started LTF in 2022 on TikTok to film my months-long chocolate chip cookie recipe development journey. The little kid in me wanted to make brownies, cookies, muffins, and everything else sweet, in order to find some solace in the last year of an intensive college Mandarin language program. After graduating, I tried interpreting — no thanks! Eventually, I got hired on as a food writer fellow with a digital publishing company. Now, I’m a kitchen product writer, and I LOVE my job. And I also love playing around with recipes, reading new baking cookbooks, and interacting with people on social media, which is what brought me here!
All my creations, in addition to butter enthusiasm, meringue obsessions, and trial-and-error, keep a clean record on this blog. I believe in transparency and fully tested recipes that are meticulous, but easy to read and follow. If you have as much a sweet tooth as me and like to bake, you’re in the right spot!
What sets your recipes apart?
A few things set my recipes apart:
- I site my sources. Recipe developers, food writers, and scientific researchers put so much work into their publications. If I use information from a news source, peer-reviewed journal, recipe post, cookbook, or anything else, I’ll make a note of it and cite it openly.
- I show the trial and error. You’ll see each recipe from “initial test” to “TESTING STATUS: COMPLETE.” Other blogs show the final results and summarized notes of what they learned about a particular baked good. I want you to not only see the tips I come up with, but also how and why I came to my conclusions.
- I cater to the sweeter side. You’ll know if a recipe isn’t for you. I use distinct, descriptive wording and examples to explain how I want a food to taste or feel. After executing a project, I then share how the results compare to my expectations. Sometimes, a fail for me will be perfect for you. Just know my taste profile is on the sweeter side.
- I don’t sugarcoat my lack of experience. Listen, I’m here with you, learning along the way! I don’t know everything. If I did, I would be pitching a cookbook right now. 😂 I love the research and development process of a recipe, and the labor that goes into the process is my form of love I provide through this blog.
My Testing Guidelines
Initial Recipe Development
The initiation phase is something you don’t see on the blog. I start every recipe by asking myself what I do and don’t like about a certain baked good, trying to work on the dislikes and enhance the likes. Afterwards, I conduct research, draw inspiration, gather sources, and use my own recipes, if possible, as jumping points.
Once I’ve calculated out a recipe, I write out a basic method and give the dish a first go. If the first go is successful in any way, I plan to post the recipe and mark it as “In Progress.” If it’s not at least edible, I head back to the drawing board and leave the recipe private until ready for further in-depth testing.
In Progress
When a recipe is listed as “IN PROGRESS,” I’m asking myself the same questions as in the initial development phase: What do I like and dislike about the results I got? Keeping notes as I go, I continue to make adjustments and bake up the recipe where appropriate for actual life events. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary, wedding, or another special occasion, I allow many people of diverse backgrounds to taste my food and give feedback. I could make the recipe only twice in this phase, or it could take dozens of tries. I don’t move it to the cross-testing phase, until I like what I see and taste in the baked goods.
Cross-Testing
The cross-testing phase ideally would involve other people making my baked goods according to the exact written recipe to evaluate the recipe for clarity and the final product. Unfortunately, I only have myself to rely on for that at the moment. I take the final written recipe, including ingredients, method, tools, time, and everything else, and I follow it how it’s written, making corrections or clarifications as I go. Oftentimes, it takes me a while to come back to a recipe to complete this step, so I get to revisit each recipe with a fresh mind. If I can follow my own recipe without asking questions about it, I publish my notes and mark the recipe as “TESTING STATUS: COMPLETE.”
Complete
Recipes marked “COMPLETE” are exactly how I envisioned them. I’ve made the recipe several times, gotten others’ opinions on it, tweaked it in both significant and tiny ways, and feel confident about my creation. However, I continue to evaluate these recipes over time to make sure they still meet my expectations.