How Jekyll Builds Your Blog Like a Kitchen Prepares a Meal

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Why Jekyll Feels Complicated If You're New

When you first hear about Jekyll, the words sound intimidating: *static site generator*, *Liquid templates*, *build process*, *front matter*. You might think it’s something only developers use. But here’s the truth: Jekyll is like a smart kitchen. You don’t need to know how the oven works—you just need a recipe and ingredients. The oven (Jekyll) takes care of the cooking (building your blog).

The Kitchen Metaphor: How Jekyll Actually Works

Let’s break it down:

  • The Recipe → Your Layout Files: Like any meal, your blog needs a consistent structure. Layouts tell Jekyll how the page should look. Where’s the title? Where’s the date? Where should the content go?
  • The Ingredients → Your Markdown Posts: You write your blog post in plain text with some front matter (like salt and pepper). These are your raw ingredients.
  • The Oven → The Jekyll Build Process: When you run Jekyll (or push to GitHub Pages), it “bakes” your site by combining layout + content into ready-to-serve HTML files.
  • The Dish → Your Final Website: After building, you get a static website—simple, fast, and already plated for the internet.

What Actually Happens When You “Build” a Jekyll Site?

Let’s say you have a blog post like this:

---
layout: post
title: "Why I Started Blogging"
date: 2025-07-03
---

This is my first post, and I’m learning how Jekyll works!

And your theme has a layout file called post.html that defines how a post page should be displayed.

When you run jekyll build or push your site to GitHub Pages, Jekyll takes that content and inserts it into the layout. It fills in the title, wraps it in HTML, applies styles, and saves the result as an HTML page inside the _site/ folder.

You didn’t write any code—but your blog was cooked and served.

So Where Do I Put the “Ingredients”?

Jekyll knows exactly where to find everything:

  • _posts/ → for your articles
  • _layouts/ → for page structures
  • _includes/ → for reusable sections (like headers, footers)
  • _config.yml → for your blog’s settings (like oven temperature)

You don’t have to set these folders up manually—they’re already included in most themes. Just focus on writing your ingredients (posts) in the right format, and the rest takes care of itself.

Do I Have to Understand Liquid Tags?

No. Liquid is like the kitchen’s automation system. It tells the oven, “Put the post title here,” or “Repeat this block for every post.”

You don’t need to touch Liquid tags when you’re starting. Just trust that they’re part of the recipe working behind the scenes.

What If I Want to Add a New Dish (Page)?

You can create a new Markdown file like this:

about.md
---
layout: page
title: About Me
permalink: /about/
---

Hi, I'm learning to blog with Jekyll. I like simple tools and fast websites.

That’s it. Jekyll will bake this into a clean /about/ page that looks just like the rest of your blog. No need to manually link or format it.

What About Themes? Are They Like Restaurant Menus?

Yes! A theme is like a restaurant’s standard menu and style. It defines how everything looks—fonts, colors, layout, and even how posts are listed. Mediumish is one example of a pre-built theme you can use without writing any CSS or JavaScript.

You can “clone” or “fork” a theme (download the menu) and then just start writing your own content (cook your own dishes).

What’s the Role of GitHub Pages in All This?

If Jekyll is the kitchen, then GitHub Pages is your food delivery service. It lets you put your finished dishes (HTML pages) on the table (the internet).

You write content → GitHub hosts it → The world sees your blog at https://yourname.github.io.

Can I Do All This Without Coding?

Absolutely. You just need to:

  1. Choose a theme

  2. Write posts in Markdown

  3. Upload files to GitHub (using browser or Git)

Over time, you can learn how the recipes (layouts) work and customize them—but you don’t have to do that now.

Final Thoughts

Jekyll isn’t just for programmers. It’s a publishing tool disguised as a code project. If you think of it like a kitchen, it becomes much less scary:

  • You bring the ingredients (writing)

  • The theme provides the recipe

  • Jekyll is the oven

  • GitHub Pages serves the final meal

Start simple. Write your first post. Let the system do the work. And soon, you’ll be running your own professional blog—without ever needing to touch a single line of code.