Baking Guilt

I often tell people that I can’t bake. This is a lie. I can bake. But, I hate it. Saying that I’m no good at it is much easier than saying that I don’t want to make hand-made rolls for Thanksgiving, bake Christmas cookies, or help with any and all bake sale type fundraisers.


I do a decent enough job at making myself feel guilty for not ever wanting to bake that I just don’t need the added pressure of others helping me along. So I lie.

There are several reasons why I hate baking:

1. Following Directions – you have to follow directions to bake. I don’t like being told what to do. Ever. A cookbook telling me what to do is just as bad as a person. Cooking is different…no directions are needed for cooking. I use cookbooks as guidelines and then often decide I know better than whoever wrote the recipe and do my own thing. This does not work with baking.

2. Measuring – I’m anti-measuring. I have all sort of measuring devices in my kitchen, but I prefer not to use them. I would rather poke myself in the eye with a toothpick than measure things. This might have something to do with my intense dislike for my 8th grade science lab teacher. She was the devil who used measuring as a way to torture kids.

3. Flour – Flour is the enemy! It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, if flour is involved, I will manage to get it everywhere. All over my clothes, the countertops, the floor. I swear, after I use flour, I spend months cleaning it up. It’s like it falls on the floor, rolls into a corner and breeds. This isn’t specific to baking…this happens to me when I’m making pasta, flouring chicken, or thickening a soup…but it’s so much worse with baking. It seems that adding baking powder to flour activates it and makes it jump out of the bowl and into my hair.

Roger often requests that I bake things and because I love him, I do it. (Not always, but enough for me to use it as leverage to get him to make a frozen yogurt run). He says that, with practice, I’ll get better at baking and enjoy it more. Until they make flour that measures itself and stays in the bowl, I don’t really see that happening.

Even though I lie about being bad at baking, there is something that I do tell the truth about. Decorating baked things. I’m truly bad at this. I’m not creative, not artistic and don’t have a steady hand at all when it comes to making little flowers with icing. So, even when I manage to bake something, DO NOT EVER ask me to make it look pretty. This will make me take the toothpick out of my eye and poke you instead.

I don’t plan on baking for school bake sales. I feel like I can bond with Kaelyn just as easily by taking her to a bakery and then out for ice cream, as I can by having her help me make cupcakes. As a matter of fact, going to the bakery will make us bond better, because bakeries don’t make me want to hurt people. Not emotionally scarring my child for life sounds like a much better choice than having us suffer through baking things.

…………..

The other day I got an email newsletter from parenting.com. They thought it would be a good idea to remind me that Kaelyn will be turning one soon. I read the mail when I was already stressed out, choosing to take a short break and read email before getting back to the task at hand.

Big mistake.

Being told my baby is growing up and that much closer to leaving me makes me cry. This newsletter did nothing to make me feel good. It said something like, “There is no more special day than your baby’s first birthday, and we thought we’d give you these 61 easy cake recipes and decorating ideas. No more excuses not to make something totally cute and fun for your little bundle of joy’s big day!” (Those weren’t the exact words, but the gist of the smothering of guilt is accurately represented).

I threw up.

Great. Now the computer is making me feel guilty. The thing is, I already considered Kaelyn’s birthday and I decided that I wasn’t going to bake her a cake. That all of us would be much happier if I just went to the store and ordered one instead. Actually, two. I was going to get the really yummy cheesecake with all the fruit on top for me, Roger, and whoever else happens to be around, and one of those tiny, single serving chocolate cakes for Kaelyn. I imagined putting the little #1 candle on top of it and then just letting her have at it. One cake all to herself. Her first taste of chocolate and sugar. Letting her be as messy as she wanted.

Those dreams have been slashed.

Now, I feel like I have to make her a stupid cake…and make it look pretty. I still want her to have her own cake…which basically means that I have to go buy little tiny baking pans and figure out how to reduce a full size recipe. It means that I might have to make two cakes (one normal size). And please, please, please, for your sake and mine, do not suggest that I make cupcakes instead. I WILL kill you.

There are only 7 weeks until Kaelyn’s first birthday. I have 7 weeks to ready myself for battle. I must bake the cake(s). I must decorate the cake(s). I must not let my intense hate for these activities alter my mood on my baby’s birthday. Her turning one is traumatic enough….now, I have parenting.com trying to make the day even more traumatic (dramatic?). Thank you parenting.com, for showing me what a horrible mother I am and making me a better person. Truly. I will be forever grateful.

I need more toothpicks.

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UPDATE:  Last night, I told Roger that I wanted to make Kaelyn's birthday cake.  Here's how well my husband knows me:

Him: "Will this make you yell at me?"
Me:  "Yes, I think it will"

Bless him!