To gain exposure, food bloggers are in constant competition to get featured on a slew of aggregator sites like Tastespotting and Food Gawker, which in many ways act as the gatekeepers of greater foodie fame. But Tastespotting editors are known for being tough and rejecting any photos that are overprocessed, poorly composed, or badly lit. Other sites like Foodbuzz, Food Gawker, Photograzing, Tasteologie, Dessert Stalking, and Food Porn Daily have high standards as well. It's not surprising that many cooking schools have started to offer pricey food-styling classes geared toward eager amateurs.

No one is complaining about high-quality photos, but the gatekeeper mentality can lead to an overwhelming sameness — browse through one too many stacks of cookies tied with baker's twine, or one too many close-up shots of pie on top of a diagonal tablecloth, and they all start to blur together. "There's a kind of visual convergence," Muller says. "And if you want to go through the conventional channels [read: aggregators], you have to subscribe to what is essentially someone else's aesthetic." That aesthetic, as food writer Adam Roberts put it in a post on his blog Amateur Gourmet, is roughly: "bright colors, punny title, big, SLR-photographed pictures of food, lots of buttons for sharing and liking on Facebook, and a safe, crowd-pleasing writing style that wouldn't be out of place in an airline magazine."

"[The aggregators] certainly inspire conformity — the short depth-of-field, naturally lit shots of mostly Western food drives a certain sort of blogging," explains blogger Phil Lees of Last Appetite, in an email. "If you hold down a day job and have little access to natural light, you're not going to be pushing very many posts through to Tastespotting."

Some argue that these aggregator sites are becoming less important thanks to Pinterest because the social media site democratizes the process. WIth Pinterest, the users, rather than faceless editors, choose the photos that go viral. But the reality is that food bloggers are up against even fiercer competition there now that huge brands like Target and Nestle are throwing marketing money into original food photography for Pinterest.

For food bloggers, that kind of photo quality is both expensive and time-consuming. Digital SLR cameras cost hundreds of dollars and an added-on macro lens ups the cost hundreds more. And with all the opportunities to tinker, time can slip by. "I often spend hours on one shot," admits Amanda Rettke of I Am Baker. "It doesn't come naturally to me."

And once the photographs are done, there's networking — which can mean commenting on other blogs to drive back traffic to your own, furiously updating Pinterest and Instagram accounts, and remembering to "like" or repin posts from other bloggers, hoping they'll return the favor. Muller, who has a full-time day job as a lawyer, says she got so exhausted by trying to keep up with fellow writers who were stay-at-home moms or worked from home that she gave up on her blog for several months.

All together, that doesn't leave a lot of time to test and retest those Flourless Chocolate Chunk Nutella Brownies — not to mention proofread the recipe for them that ends up on your blog.

At food magazines, while most staffers are multitaskers, clear divisions of labor exist. Having a separate recipe developer, food stylist, photographer, and photo editor is standard — to say nothing of other editors, publishers, and social media teams tasked with actually getting those recipes and photos in front of readers.

Since its inception, blogging has removed some of the laymen, but top independent food bloggers have to wear an unusual number of hats very well if they want to succeed. They're also expected to make it look incredibly easy.

That means that much of the real work that goes into being a food blogger gets Photoshopped away. But behind every shot of a blueberry scone topped with a casual dust of powdered sugar is an anything-but-casual setup: fancy cameras, reflectors, backdrops, photo-editing software, a marketing plan, a social media strategy, an attempt to drive up readership to increase AdSense revenue.

Muller points out that the attempt to make it all look simple seeps into the writing of many food blogs as well. "There's a kind of tweeness," she says. The problem, some would argue, is that this particular kind of aww-shucks-I'm-just-a-gal-who-likes-butter schtick elides much of the real, hard, professional work that food bloggers put into their sites. "I'm guilty of it 100%," says Muller. "I've caught myself writing that way and thought, I need to sound smarter."