Why I Love Baking

I hate cooking. Or, at least, I did until I married a man who loves to come with all sorts of creative meals. Now I find I spend more time in the kitchen helping chop vegetables and other such healthy things than I ever thought I would. That said, despite my previous aversion to cooking, I've always been drawn to baking. I used to make giant cookies in my mother's oven as a child, because really, who doesn't love cookie cake? Back then, the motivation was because I wanted to then eat said cookie. I baked solely to get the end result. 

My baking interest took a plunge for a while through college, when I lived in a dorm and had no proper baking gear. (My interest in eating baked goods did not plummet, however). It took a few years for the desire to create desserts to rekindle, but it actually happened while I was planning my wedding and thought to myself, "Hey, cupcakes are cute." 

Since then, I've turned it into a full-time hobby. Here's why:

1) I do like to eat sweets, but I'm more interested in the process behind making them. And the batter. I love batter. In 5th grade, I took a "dessert" of cookies with a brownie batter "dip" to the school Halloween party. No one ate it, because it was just raw brownie batter. I enjoyed it the entire way home. I have a serious weakness for raw batter and dough.

2) Dessert makes people happy. Almost everyone loves dessert. Everyone loves it even more when someone else makes the dessert. Baking is a small way to spread the joy.

3) Along those lines, I have been told there are some "people" who don't like dessert. To them, I say... nothing. I've never met such a person, and whoever says that they have is lying. Everyone has a weakness for a particular dessert, you just have to figure out what it is.

4) I do realize that desserts can be *gasp* fattening. Yes, this is true. I also realize that refined sugar and flour are bad for you. And I know a lot of people are on diets. I think it is great that the general public is working to get healthier. I also strongly believe that diets don't work without some emotional gratification. If we deprive ourselves of things we enjoy, then we look at food solely as sustenance. I think it is this view that can become very dangerous. Not only does this view lead to eating disorders, it also takes away any enjoyment from food and the processes by which we prepare it. And if we learned anything from Patch Adams, it's that being happy helps make you healthy! (No, I do not mean that eating a whole batch of cupcakes in one sitting will make you happy as your significant other treats you like dirt. That's an extreme. I'm not talking extremes.)

5) I strongly believe that we should aim to eat real food (e.g. not processed food-like substances) as much as possible. When I get a dessert from a restaurant, I have no idea when it was prepared or what went into it. Even worse, if I buy "cosmic brownies" at the gas station, I'm putting an incredible amount of food-like substances into my body without actually giving it any food. I like to know what goes into what I eat. That's why I make everything from scratch, and buy my ingredients fresh. I never buy boxed caked mixes or frosting. My milk, eggs, and butter all come from the local dairy down the street. I can see the cows that provide me with these ingredients grazing in the field as I drive to work each day. I can't get locally-grown sugar, but I do experiment with raw sugar as much as possible, so it's gone through fewer steps for refinement. When I eat a cupcake that I make from scratch, I can name (and pronounce!) every ingredient that went into it.

6) It relieves stress. True, sometimes it creates it, but for the most part I find it incredibly relaxing. I can put on music, dance around the kitchen, and enjoy some time to myself. Or I can hook up the hands-free on my phone and catch up with friends and family. Or I can manually go through the baking steps while mentally talking things over with God. I can be completely quiet or I can be loud and crazy. When I feel like my life is falling apart, nothing makes me feel better than making a huge mess in the kitchen, and then ending not only with a clean kitchen but also yummy desserts to show for it. Even if I can't control the mess in my own life, I can control the mess in my kitchen.

7) Baking gives me permission to make mistakes. I am the type of person who works very hard not to mess up, but I am bad at it. That's where baking comes in. While I might not get a perfect end result every time, I learn something new each time. And usually the mistake is something with the decorations, not the ingredients. This means I might end up with a less-than-perfect looking cupcake, but it still tastes great. It's an awesome reminder not to judge something by the outside. And also, too, that we need to make mistakes in order to grow. It's like Life Lessons from Betty Crocker.

8) Lastly, I love to create. That said, I'm not visually artistic. I've never been able to draw or paint. I'm not musically talented. I can't dance (I try, but I can't). I'm not handy (ask my husband). I even have a hard time growing flowers.The only type of "art" I've ever been able to create is poetry, and even that was never very good. True, my degree is in creative writing, but the thing I love about poetry is the way it takes language - or, rather, individual words - and pieces them together into something much bigger (either in length or meaning). When I started baking again, it gave me an outlet in which to create in a very similar manner. Taking individual ingredients, I am able to put them together and come up with something amazing. Something that everyone can enjoy. It's a wonderful feeling to create something beautiful, delicious, and ... gone the moment it gets put out on the table. :-)