I made a great announcement in our home this past week. I called an official end to caking!
“This is my last one!” words my family has probably been silently holding prayer meetings about for years. The statement had barely escaped my lips and I heard the collective sigh of relief from my support team. Deservedly so, I have put them through great bouts of emotional turmoil in the name of cakes.
It wasn’t always this way (they will tell you different if asked; evil is a more readily accessible memory recall over happiness). In the beginning, a few hundred cakes ago, I enjoyed the challenge of creating edible art works. This is how I remember it anyway. Time, patience, creative freedom, a complete absence of technical hiccups (fantasy is also an easier recall than reality) Perhaps the reasons behind the joy of those early cakes was the more personal and inspiring nature. I began with birthday cakes for my own kids, then cakes for the children of friends. Thus began the progression of self-taught cakery. Birthdays, showers, anniversaries, open houses, weddings, if there was an occasion I had a cake, real, fake, cupcake, cookies, you name it I could pipe it!
I have heard that a person’s patience lessens with age; I struggle against the notion but I so wonder if the increasing demands on my time are not taking a toll on my patience. Rushing and cake creation are not great bed fellows. Couple this lack of time and patience with the phenomenon known to every cake artist as “cake nightmare” (cakes that get dropped, melt, change colour, bubble, ooze, sweat, bleed) I’ve had enough. I probably had enough about 3 years ago but I have only recently learned the finesse of saying no. As a result I find myself alone in the kitchen, sometimes cursing and swearing at piping bags and uncooperative patterns, colours, roses, leaves and anything else that fails to yield to my bidding. My family cringes at the thought of me in the kitchen with cake these days. I recognize it, I feel it, I cringe too!
So the word is “I don’t do that, it’s not fun anymore.”
Many people who have enjoyed my cakes wonder how I can just walk away. These people only understand good cake they don’t get cake anxiety. Here is the best explanation I can give for the level of discomfort the pastime causes me at the present time…. When I made the announcement that I was creating my very last cake, Kate quickly proclaimed “ok, but you still have to make my wedding cake.” Teenagers thrive on inflicting undue stress upon their parents. I can think of no greater stressful situation and Kate pounced upon it.
So I opt out of future cakes, for now. Not because I don’t love you all and your need for cake but because one day my kids are going to get married and I would love to make their cakes…without medication.
Here’s a look back (I made cakes, I didn’t take pictures…ever) just a couple shots…
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| The last cake |
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| The First Cake |
