Making Cake Is Not Meant To Be Stressful

Janneke
Nov 30, 2019
4 min read

Updated: Dec 15, 2019

Monday is the second anniversary of the day of our angel baby, born to early for life in this world. So it's only the second year I've experienced feelings of anxiety, rolled up into the familiar feelings of mourning and sorrow as we approach "D" day or rather in my house "B" day. We love a good birthday celebration. As its only our second celebration of this kind for our son, we are still figuring out how we like to celebrate. One thing is for sure - we celebrate with cake, my littlest people have already spoken on this matter.

Celebratory Cake for birthdays is a tradition in our home like many others but what we determine as cake has been evolving. When I was a kid I looked in the women's weekly birthday cook book and picked a novelty cake our Mum could make. I rejected my fourth birthday cake master piece on account of the icing not being perfectly smooth like the picture; that began my personal journey of needing perfection from cakes. I have rejected many of my own late night cake creation efforts as imperfect and substandard over the last 17 years of birthdays. We still use the cakes, our kids are still delighted with their cakes, I have just been inwardly torn at the metaphorically "not smooth icing".

Following my 11th birthday cake failure and a failure to even get out of pyjamas I realised that from the 12 and up, our children could make their own cakes, it would be fun for them. It was. The mess in the kitchen wasn't fun though and so our oldest child cleverly began to request a tub of ice cream for his cake. I personally don't even really like cake, I like cinnamon rolls or apple crumble or pumpkin pie, these are all more delicious to me and achievable, with a visual imperfection that is charming and even desirable.

So in a quiet moment of trying to calm the "D"day/B'day celebratory mournings, I found myself watching Momofuku Milk Bar cakes on YouTube, a moment of joyful enlightenment struck my heart and mind! Describing the German Chocolate Jimbo cake, owner/creator extraordinaire Christina Tosi shared that it's a "fun" process broken up into a few days and then this:

"Making cake is not meant to be this stressful experience!"

Whaaaat!? I've always wanted to enjoy it, I've pretended I've enjoyed it but now you're telling me it can actually be joyful at my skill level!? With my kitchen space!? And my lack of tools!? For some reason I felt inclined to believe her. Maybe because it doesn't look perfect or pretentious, it's not all symmetrical or balanced or piped or smoothed, it just looks like it's made with deliciousness and delicious love - like someone had a good time making this cake. Or maybe it's because the spirit had me pay attention to the truth.

I don't have her recipe. I'm actually a decent home cook (my family don't hate what I make), I also like to downsize sugar in recipes so that we downsize potential pre diabetes meals. I don't need her recipe. I watched what she did. She made it all in different sections and then using a mould she squashed different elements of the cake into it. I saw that this was something I could do with my children:

Make a Chocolate cake (German or not)
Make the German chocolate custard
Add cornflakes to nut butter (probably crunchy peanut butter because it's in the cupboard)
Make a chocolate butter cream (butter cream is gross to my palette I'll be making something else.)
Cut cake and assemble
Chill for a few hours
Pray, love, eat (bless the food, give gratitude for the process, talk as we eat and share what we liked about making it, eat - ASAP as slowly as possible, decide if it's worthy of trying again).

The saying "ever wonder if you're a controlling person? Try cooking with children" has been proven in this household. I'm not always controlling but when I am, it's not fun. So today we start making an imperfect German Chocolate Jimbo inspired cake with recipes I know in my head, and recipes in my cookbook (some that are still a work in progress) and we will make a mess but only a bit at a time.

On Monday we will squash our bits of cake together in a make shift mould. It will probably look nothing like the Momofuku masterpiece of smooshed cake but it will be a shared effort, it will involve taste testing and licking (elements of cooking our children adore) and whether it stands or falls over, we will still eat it, sitting around our table describing what we like about it or don't like, whether it's crunchy or soft and what we would like to do the next time we try.

I am actually looking forward to this. I don't look forward to the "D"day/B'day, I want to celebrate but it comes with a wave of emotion that I'm missing a piece of me, my family has an empty seat at our table and it will be a while before the ache of longing is truly resolved through our merciful King, Lord, Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. However for the second year the Lord has provided a way to celebrate our shared grief. In a moment he has spoken truth to my heart and mind, through a YouTube baking video; that I can make cake and do it with an element of joy, I can bring my family together for multiple joyful experiences culminating in a masterpiece of unity and delighted eating.

Men are that they might have joy.
Mama's are that they might have joy and share joy.
Making cake is not meant to be stressful.
Families are forever, even when we are apart for a while.
Life should be full of praise - it's just harder to come by with some experiences than others.

The link to the Momofuku Milk Bar German Chocolate Jimbo cake is below incase anyone needs more inspiration for delicious imperfection and finding joy in the process (cake making or other).

https://youtu.be/04PZ_DWV1sg