lovely little inspiration: thea tillberg of baking magique (her advice, favorite dessert, & more)

Thea Tillberg of Baking Magique

Thea Tillberg of Baking Magique

Hi-Hi, Everyone!

Today’s ‘lovely little inspiration‘ post features the brilliant Thea Tillberg of Baking Magique.

I came across Thea’s blog several months (perhaps even a year?) ago, after discovering (and, of course, pinning) a stunning original photograph of hers on Pinterest. If you have a Pinterest account of your own, odds are you’ve seen quite a few of Thea’s images already. After learning her age (then 17, now 18), I was even more impressed. I mean, the bread she bakes is utterly perfect – a professional couldn’t do it better.

Thea agreed to answer the seven brief interview questions below, and I can’t thank her enough for participating in this inspiration series. Each response she composed is entirely fantastic. Enjoy!


lovely little inspiration:

thea tillberg of baking magique

1) When and why did you begin blogging? Was there something or someone in particular that inspired you?

I wanted to find a way to organize all of my recipes and a blog seemed to be the perfect solution. If you go back in the archives to when I started blogging you’ll see that I wrote in Swedish and only posted a recipe along with one picture and a short note about it. After a couple of weeks of blogging I thought it was so fun so I started putting more time and effort into each post, switched from Swedish to English and started treating it more like a food blog than just a recipe journal. I didn’t read a lot of food blogs when I started blogging, I didn’t even know it was a thing! So I wasn’t really inspired by anyone to start blogging, however as time has passed I’ve found all these amazing food blogs which I’m inspired by.

2) Thea, you graduated from high school just this year! How were you able to regularly update your blog, bake, & attend classes at the same time? (Congratulations, by the way!)

Thanks! I don’t know… I don’t update as often as I did in the beginning since I put a lot more effort into the recipe development, photography and writing now. I bake about 3-5 times a week but only one recipe usually ends up on the blog (and most of the time I bake bread but somehow I only post the sweet recipes, Probably because it’s so much easier to photograph sweets than bread 😉 ). Usually I’ll bake, photograph, edit photos and write recipes on the weekend and then publish on Sunday or Monday.

By Thea | Baking Magique

By Thea | Baking Magique

3) Do you have a favorite recipe? If so, what is it?

It must be Nigella’s Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (recipe on my blog). It’s a flourless chocolate cake made with ground almonds which makes it super moist.The cake is so good that no one would ever notice that it’s both gluten and dairy free.

4) What are your absolute favorite desserts to bake during the summer months? Are there any particular ingredients you like to use when the weather is warmer?

Anything rhubarb! During the summer I bake a lot of crumbles with different fruits, berries or rhubarb and serve it with vanilla ice cream.

5) Which food blogs do you derive the most inspiration from?

Too many… Just to name a few I like Cannelle Vanille because of all the gluten free sweet recipes and Top With Cinnamon is my favorite teen food blog.

By Thea | Baking Magique

By Thea | Baking Magique

6) A few just-for-fun questions! What is your favorite… color? book? tv show? animal? ingredient to bake with?

Color: Red
Book: The Book Thief, the Harry Potter series and The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
TV show: Grey’s Anatomy and Gilmore Girls
Animal: Elephants and dogs!
Ingredients: Cardamom, rhubarb, chocolate, sea salt, buckwheat, millet and butter.

7) What advice would you give to someone just beginning their a) photography and b) baking journeys?

a) It took a long time for me to get comfortable taking photos of my food and the only way to learn is to practice. Shoot in natural light by a window when it’s cloudy outside. Pinterest is a great resource, If I’m shooting a recipe for brownies I’ll visit my brownies board on Pinterest and find some inspiration before the shoot. Buy some fun props at second hand stores and flea markets, it’s cheap and will make your photos more interesting and beautiful!

b) I had no idea how to bake until my last year in middle school when, one day, I decided that I wanted to learn how to bake. In the beginning there were a lot of failures; sunken cakes, flat pat a choux pastry, over whipped cream and underbaked bread. I learned from my mistakes and that’s probably the best and only way to learn things. My best advice would be to read through the recipe one extra time before starting to bake and to follow the recipe to a tee! If a recipe calls for room temp butter, use room temp butter! This is really important if you’re not an experienced baker.


These recipes from Baking Magique are currently on my to-make list:

Thanks Again, Thea!

xoxo, Friends,

Abby

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12 comments on “lovely little inspiration: thea tillberg of baking magique (her advice, favorite dessert, & more)”

  1. So happy to discover a new to me blog! Those waffles look scrumptious!

  2. Aww! I loved this! I just recently discovered Thea and her blog and am so impressed! It was fun to learn a little more about her! 🙂

    • Thanks, Tieghan! Thea’s blog has become a favorite of mine lately. And isn’t it always fun to learn more about the people behind amazing sites? <3

  3. I find the way Thea started blogging incredibly inspiring, especially the fact that she started blogging without even really knowing what blogging was, as blogging is such a young industry that has recently seen a lot of growth. I also love how her blog really just started as something for herself, but I’m so glad that she’s sharing it with us now! -Audrey | Brunch at Audrey’s

    • Thanks for commenting, Audrey! I love it when people start blogs for themselves because they love & want to share their hobbies, as opposed too those who blog solely for money and recognition. Sure, that stuff is great, but what’s the point if you have no passion for what you’re doing? Thea is an excellent example of success coming naturally when you’re doing something you enjoy. <3

  4. Aww I love Thea’s blog!! I had the same reaction, literally gasping when I saw her beautiful photographs, and then discovering her youth!! She is certainly talented 🙂

  5. Omg I love Thea’s blog!!! Her photography is absolutely stunning and I don’t know how she comes up with all those wonderful gluten free recipes! Especially bread since you’re supposed to develop the gluten, but what if there’s no gluten to develop? Her bread loaf still turned out as fluffy as ever leaving me in awe…
    Ug she’s absolutely amazing…

    • Hahah, thanks for the comment, Anne! And gluten free baking… right?! It will never NOT confuse me. 🙂 xx

  6. Wonderful interview again lovely Abby! 🙂
    I love reading how all these amazing blogs started up and what they’ve transformed into – so inspiring!
    Hope all is well!
    xxx