Cake Decorating Phase

When I was younger, I went through a cake decorating phase. I watched a lot of Food Network and would go to Michaels and JoAnn Fabrics in my home town and wistfully wander down the aisles with chocolate molds and piping bags. Granted, I could sew. Granted, I did a lot of textile art. Granted there were far better sections of these stores for me to explore. But I walked down the cake aisle.

“Maybe I’ll be a cake decorator some day,” I’d dream. It’s the kind of thing you say when you’re 12 and momentarily fixated on something that feels glamorous. “Maybe I’ll be interested in this forever!”

Spoiler: I am not a cake decorator. And frankly, I don’t want to be. I work in the nonprofit industry and I love it. But on birthdays and holidays and totally-not-at-all-”special”-occasions, I bake cakes. I bake cookies and pies and pastries. And I love that too.

A few months ago, I was making a layered dessert in my apartment. The sun not fully risen. The gentle folk music quiet enough to not rouse any slumberers. The gentle hum of a stand mixer. Flour smudged apron. I was dancing in a beautiful kitchen in the perfect apartment I share with my amazing boyfriend making a fancy dessert just because I could and it hit me all at once. 

My younger self’s brain would explode if it knew this was how you were spending Sunday morning—alone in the kitchen, baking for people you love.  

Look at how beautifully things have turned out.

When I was really little and we had family over for dinner (usually around the holidays), my mom would let me arrange the dessert tray. Really, what that meant was taking an assortment of Christmas cookies and putting them on a plate to present to our guests. I thrived on this. To this day, there are few things more exciting to me than making a dessert tray. 

It felt like love. I think the reason dessert trays remain such a pure memory is because it was love. It was sharing something delicious, something that you made with someone you care about. It was a way to say, “I see you. I hear you. Let us sit together and be.” 

If ever there are moments when I feel like I’m not doing enough or I’m not living into the person I want to be. If ever there are moments when I wonder if I’m making Little Me proud, I need only think of what it means to nourish with a homemade cinnamon roll. I need only remember my eyes widening at a new take on strawberry shortcake. I need only remember how something as simple as a cake carrier puts me exactly where I need to be.