Meet 19-year-old identical twins Livia and Maya Benson, two North Carolina residents with a thriving online community centered around baking. Their blog is called Identical Recipes and they showcase fun recipes to bake throughout the year. Viral concoctions such as brownie-stuffed pumpkin cookies have taken the internet by the sweet tooth.
The duo has a handle on about every social media platform; their largest audience is on TikTok, where they have 1.6 million followers, but a lot of their traffic also comes from Pinterest. They use social media as a tool to get eyes on their blog and their brand new cookbook which just released a few months ago.
It all started like many great kitchen legends, with Maya baking mountains of cakes during COVID lockdowns. They didn’t even have a fully functional kitchen at the time due to paused renovations. One thing led to another, and soon the sisters were posting their baking process online — mixing, whisking, and accidentally stirring up a following they never expected. “We thought, ‘how can we continue doing this and not break the bank?'” says Livia.
By 2023, they decided to make things official and launched their blog. That led to posting blog links to their on Pinterest, where recipe hunters roam. “It was a learning curve to figure out how to make it all look good and incorporate ads into it,” says Livia.
Despite being 19 with a social media presence large enough to intimidate any average person, both Maya and Livia stay cool as cookie dough in the fridge. For them, the spotlight shines more on their craft than on themselves. “It feels like you’re connecting more with them when they know who you are and what you look like,” says Maya. “It’s more about what we are doing and not necessarily us. I’m just in the videos for a human aspect,” adds Livia. And yes, in the early days the comments section was filled with eager fans demanding “face reveal!”
Now, the twins are each off at college: Livia at the University of North Carolina and Maya at North Carolina State University, both majoring in business. The summer before their freshman year of college, they had the opportunity to make a cookbook. They spent their summer baking, testing recipes and filming content. They worked on the manuscript during the school year and balanced the stress of finals with the stress of editing their first book.
Now in their sophomore year, the two are still hard at work between school and the whirlwind of promoting their blog and their new book. “Now that we’re in business school we realized we built such a great built business model kind of on accident,” says Livia.
The book, “Cookies Every Day,” was released on Aug. 26. “There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes of everything. It helps a lot that we do it together,” says Livia. “It’s a way for us to be together, it’s all very cohesive,” adds Maya.
“We don’t really wear that we have a cookbook and blog on our skin so when people find out about it it’s like revealing a huge secret,” Livia adds with a laugh. Sometimes, their roommates get lucky and get to reap delicious benefits.
They’re excited to see where Identical Recipes takes them, but they aren’t putting all of their cookies in one jar. They both still plan to find other internships, continue earning their degrees and working toward careers. In the meantime, they’re partnering with major brands like Cinnabon, Country Crock, HelloFresh and Disney. Livia says working with those brands happened very quick. “It was great but it felt almost temporary.” She hopes they get the opportunity to work with some more longterm in the future.
“It’s crazy to me because I didn’t think something like this was possible. I didn’t expect us to be able to take it this far,” says Maya.
Seeing their book on shelves is the most exciting part to Livia and Maya. “Only having social media and a blog before, it never really felt real. But the cookbook, in a way, has been making our business feel more real and authentic,” says Livia.
While we were trying to preheat the oven, these two already made ideas for future books with the similar easy instructions and viral-worthy recipes that can be found in “Cookies Every Day.” Guess we’ll need to stock up on butter.
Catch the second stop of their book tour at The Country Bookshop for a free signing, this Sunday Nov. 30, 2-3 p.m. Ready to bust out the cookie sheets? Check out their website.
