How Do They Do That??

This year I started learning to decorate cakes.  Nothing formal, just articles and videos online and one short online course with the basics. It’s a lot of fun.  I wanted to learn how, but how to do it without having a lot of cake in the house?  Then it came to me.  I could make cakes for friends and family! I do one cake a month, and so far every cake has been a different technique so I am learning a lot in a fairly short amount of time.  The one caveat is that the recipients have to be okay with not knowing ahead of time what it will look like and the fact that it will not be perfect.  (That last part may be harder for me than for the people getting the cake.)

So far people have loved them.  I am having fun and learning something new, and people are enjoying getting cake.  (After all, who doesn’t love cake??) One thing I didn’t expect was how happy it would make people.  They get excited knowing that they are getting a cake – a cake that was designed just for them.  So I get to learn something new while making people happy.  That is definitely a win-win!

I have been watching holiday baking competitions on TV.  I love them.  It’s so much fun to see what they can do with cakes, cookies, and other desserts.  But some of them make me feel a little inadequate.  I know some things about decorating cakes and cookies but I know there is so much more that I haven’t learned yet that it doesn’t bother me a bit that they do a beautiful job and that I couldn’t possibly do that right now.  But somehow the shows where they are given an ingredient or a theme and have to come up with a dessert do bother me a wee bit.  HOW do they do that?  How do they just have recipes in their head for so many desserts and cakes?  How do they make something new from nothing but the one ingredient they are told they have to use?  And on top of it all they all just happen to know how to make homemade ice cream or egg nog?? Come on.

I consider myself a good baker, but I need a recipe.  Baking is science.  I’m okay with adding a few more raisins or adding nuts even if the recipe doesn’t call for them, but in the end, baking is science and you don’t mess with science.  Or at least not too much.  Some are professionals so I can understand how they know how to do those things, but some are home bakers.  Needless to say, I cheer for the home bakers.

And while I love watching them, it does beg the question – why does it make me feel inadequate?  It’s not like I stew about it and think about it all day long, but sometimes while I’m watching them make these amazing creations I do think about it.  But why?  Even the home bakers obviously have training even if they are self-taught and have been doing it for years.  My cakes aren’t perfect, but they are prettier than what someone who hasn’t learned about it will probably do.  And if I do say so myself, they are also pretty yummy.

I think even the most confident and self-assured of us compares ourselves to other people sometimes.  And sometimes we compare ourselves to others thinking we are better at something than they are.  But why do we need to?  Why isn’t who we are and what we can do enough?

I don’t know the answer to that.  What I do know is this: you are enough.  I am enough.  What we can do right now is enough.  It is exactly what we are supposed to be able to do at this point in our journey.  Let’s all take that in and know and accept that it is true.

We are enough.