What Happened to Bakingdom?

Bakingdom.com was a baking platform started and managed by Darla Wireman, a self-taught baker, harry potter enthusiast, photographer, and military wife. Darla’s website featured a wide selection of recipes, travel logs, a shop section where you could purchase her aprons and other merchandise.

Darla herself describes Bakingdom as follows – “Bakingdom is about having fun and exploring new, and old, recipes. It’s about good food, beauty, and knowing that ruling the kitchen is easier to do than you think. I’m simply here to eat, drink, and be merry, to try and find joy in the small things, geek out over the things I geek out over, and to have fun in this short life”.

To our very surprise, this website is no longer accessible today. We’ve made several attempts to visit the website, and everyone came back with an error message saying “This site can’t be reached”.

What happened to what was once a favorite baking blog of many? What happened to the person behind this one-woman operation? 

If you are like us and are wondering what really happened to Bakingdom.com, you’re at the right place. We’ve done the research and the stalking and we’ll tell you everything we know about what happened to Darla and her Bakingdom baking blog. 

The History of Bakingdom.com

Bakingdom was a food blog started by Darla Wireman in 2010. In her very first blog post “Welcome to My Realm” where she shared how the blog started, she humorously wrote, “I mean, how many stunning food blogs are there out there? And I think I have something new or unique to say?”

Yet that is exactly what Darla brought to her audience – stunning, delicious, and exceptionally unique content that is well worth all of our time. Over the next seven years, we saw Darla posting consistently and was regularly featured in the press such as The Huffington Post as well as guest posting for other popular food blogs. 

Well, semi-consistently I should say. From her most shared posts, we can see that Darla’s most popular content was created around 2011, which seems to be when she was the most active on Bakingdom. We saw Darla beginning to post less frequently in 2014 going into 2015, posting only once in 2016 with an announcement of her “official hiatus from full-time blogging”.

Understandably so! As Darla explained in the post, she had been traveling a lot and was preparing to move back home to the States from Europe, where she was staying with her husband and puppy for over three years. 

Could that be the reason why she left the blog for good?

Top 10 Most Popular Recipes on Bakingdom

It’s no secret in the baking community that Darla had some of the greatest most creative recipes on her blog – especially ones inspired by Harry Potter, her favorite! In case you didn’t get a chance to see them before, here are Darla’s most popular recipes on Bakingdom. 

1. Homemade Butterbeer Recipe

Of all of her amazing recipes, her Homemade Butterbeer Recipe from 2010 was probably the most recognized.

Darla’s attempt to recreate this special treat that you can only get at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is clearly one of her fan’s favorites. She described the drink as “a cross between a butterscotch cream soda and a root beer float” that is “strangely addictive”.

Darla’s version of the butterbeer involves six 12-ounce bottles of chilled cream soda mixed with some butter flavoring or clarified butter, topped with a foam made of heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, and some more butter extract.

2. Butterbeer Hot Chocolate

No, we really aren’t surprised that another Harry Potter-inspired recipe made it to second place on the list. Posted in 2015, Darla’s Butterbeer Hot Chocolate was her second most shared recipe. 

Similar to her butterbeer recipe, Darla’s butterbeer hot chocolate uses the same foam topping made of heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, and imitation butter. The base, which is a not-so-basic hot chocolate, is made of milk, cream, butterscotch chips, butterscotch sauce, cocoa powder, vanilla, and more butter flavoring. 

If you can’t find butterscotch sauce, Darla also had a recipe for it. The process is similar to making caramel, which involves bringing sugar and water to a boil and mixing into it some heavy cream, butter, and vanilla extract. 

3. Soft Honey Oat Bread

The number three most shared recipe by Darla was her homemade honey oat bread recipe. Darla shares with her readers what a struggle it can be to wake up but that honey oat bread always does the job for her. 

The recipe is simple and requires only a few ingredients. She also provided substitutes that make this recipe vegan-friendly. If you don’t have an electric mixer and don’t want to tire your arms out, don’t stress because this recipe can easily be done in a bread machine as well.

4. Rainbow Heart Cake

Next on this list is Darla’s Rainbow Heart Layer Cake recipe. Now I must say, this recipe was fun to read and the result is so beautiful and intriguing, but with that comes a longer, more complicated process with several individual recipes involved. 

The rainbow heart cake recipe combines Amanda’s heart cake recipe with a rainbow layer cake. The cake is covered with rainbow-colored fondant flowers, the cake is rainbow colored and with a heart at the center, visible when cut in half. 

To make this cake, you will need two recipes of Darla’s yellow cake, ½ a recipe of vanilla buttercream, and some marshmallow fondant that you can either make or buy. Below I will attach all of Darla’s recipes used to make this cake. 

5. Creepy and Cute Monster Claw Cupcakes

While living away from home, Darla couldn’t help but miss Halloween back home – the scary movies, pumpkins, candies, and treats. And so of course, she brought the Halloween spirit to Europe with her.

The Creepy and Cute Monster Claw Cupcakes are made of three parts: chocolate cupcakes, vanilla buttercream frosting, and a recipe for marshmallow fondant. Darla had recipes for each component. 

6. Cinnamon Caramel Apple “Pumpkins”

In September 2011, Darla was inspired by the fall season to get creative with her caramel apples and brought to all of us a super E-A-S-Y caramel apple shaped like pumpkins.

Like many caramel apple recipes, Darla’s also uses green apples. She also sands them to help the caramel stick to the apples. This is an inexpensive but impressive fall treat that is a must-try for sure.

7. Hogwarts Vertical Layer Spice Cake

Now are we surprised by another Harry Potter inspired treat? I know I’m not. 

The Hogwarts Vertical Layer Spice Cake aka the Hoggy Warty Hogwarts Cake is a treat dedicated to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It’s a delicious spice cake with a fluffy cream cheese frosting decorated in a rustic way, inspired by the four main house colors. 

8. Star Trek Sugar Cookies

As a long-standing Trekkie since she was only seven years old, it’s no surprise that Darla would dedicate her cute treats to the 45th anniversary of one of her all-time favorite shows.

Darla made the Star Trek characters into cookies, very cute, dolly cookies that are. Placed on a field of stars, the dollies looked very much in their element. 

Included in this recipe were her rolled sugar cookies, faux royal icing, and marshmallow fondant recipes. You can see it below.

9. Homemade Twinkie Cupcakes

In celebration of her friend Kristan’s daughter, Darla made these pink twinkie-inspired baby shower cupcakes. 

The base of the cupcake is a basic spongy yellow cake and they are each filled with a marshmallow cream filling, topped with a marshmallow buttercream. Needless to say, they tasted much better than Twinkies.

10. Double Double Chocolate Cauldron Cakes

In celebration of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Darla made these tasty little chocolate muffins dipped in rich chocolate and topped with smooth chocolate frosting – aka Cauldron Cakes. 

They can be done in regular muffin pans but for more authenticity, Darla suggests using a hemisphere pan. You would also have to make cauldrons’ handles on a slip mat so make sure to have one ready. These Cauldron cakes will no doubt make you stand out at a Harry potter themed party or Halloween.

What Then Happened to Bakingdom.com?

So many cute, creative recipes and with a strong following, what then happened to Darla and Bakingdom.com? Here’s our theory. 

“Official Hiatus From Full-time Blogging”

As Darla and her husband (who she adoringly calls the Hubster) celebrated their 14th marriage anniversary in 2016, Darla announced that their stay in Europe was officially over and that they would be moving back to the States.

She also explained that her puppy Loki, who was frequently mentioned in her blog, had been going through some health issues that often occupied the couple. On top of that, there were some problems with her computer and as a result, she could no longer upload or edit her photography for her recipes and craft ideas until it was replaced.

Since then, Darla has posted only a few more times. Her last update – Queenie’s Apple Strudel Dumplings inspired by the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was a timely recipe fitting for the movie’s release back in 2017. 

Darla appreciates her fans and followers for keeping up with her updates and promised to continue sharing on her social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). We’ve seen Darla’s updates on Facebook and Twitter until the end of March 2017. 

Instagram

On Instagram is where Darla has been staying the most active. She updates frequently, often Disney bounding and posting about her adventures and new baked creations on her profile.

Darla and the Hubster later got themselves two feline fur babies Ripley and Cindel. Sadly, not too long after that, Loki had passed away which we can only imagine had taken a huge toll on Darla. Even now, two years since he had passed, Darla still often posts about him and the memories they’ve shared.

As we see on her profile @bakingdom, it’s clear that Darla has many creative outlets and talents outside of baking. She also creates beautiful art, takes care of her many houseplants, showcases the brilliant changes she makes on her house, takes and posts aesthetic photos. 

Final Thoughts

Our take? Perhaps Darla is simply too occupied by the many passions she has in her life to dedicate a large chunk of her time to maintaining Bakingdom. Having moved back to the States and being closer to her family and friends can surely take away some time as well as she now has more people to surround herself with. 

But baking or not baking, Darla’s creativity will continue to inspire and bring joy to so many. I hope that you’ve found this article to be useful and that you may have even found recipes that you thought you were never going to see again. 

Do you know what happened to Bakingdom.com? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for more content like this!

I am a self-taught baker. I’ve been baking for over 10 years and started my own home baking business as a side hustle. I was born in Hong Kong and spent a pretty big chunk of my life in Canada. If you’re ever looking for me, I am probably there whisking vigorously away in the kitchen.