Betty Crocker

--> My son is turning three next week, which is a big deal. He is very excited about his party and that means the pressure is ON. How many of you remember your third birthday party and the many details your mother included to make it perfect? All of you? That’s what I thought.

Mostly what concerns me about his birthday party is the cake. I have decided, against all logic, that I am going to be a mom who bakes her children’s birthday cakes from scratch each year. I just decided that, and I’m not sure why. I think Pinterest may have something to do with it.

I have this vision of me in a cute apron, mixing the batter, humming a calm, happy tune. This is how I want my son to remember me: the cute, perfect mom.

 Picture from HERE.

However it usually ends up with me alone in the kitchen at 11PM swearing like a sailor. 

Maybe to you, making a cake is no big deal, but baking in general stresses me out. I never have the right ingredients, I don’t remember to soften the butter, and inevitably I spill too much of something into the batter and wonder forever what it would have tasted like had I not done that.

I blame this culinary handicap on my mother. She is a self-proclaimed terrible cook, and raised me to believe that cooking is both difficult and unnatural. She is famous for bizarre kitchen mishaps, like cooking frozen pizzas upside-down in the oven, or forgetting to put sugar in chocolate-chip cookies. When these things happen, she always laughs and says “See? This is why I don’t cook!”

But despite this anti-cooking background, I really want to be a person who cooks. I visit this blog every day and make big plans. It’s my own little rebellion. I’m like the republican Alex P. Keaton to his hippie parents, Elyse and Steven Keaton. What would we do, Baby, without us? Sha-na-na-naaaaaaa. 

What prevents me from going Betty-Crocker all over this joint (my house) is a deeply-embedded lack of confidence. I am always certain that whatever I am making will not turn out, and this doubt causes me to make silly mistakes, and while I am lamenting those mistakes I make more mistakes, and then the swearing begins. 

When I am bake-swearing, it is often about these topics:

1) Sifting. Why? Can’t I just stir the stuff together with a fork? Do I really need to go buy and wash a sifter every time flour and salt need to mix together?

2) Room-temperature butter. I see why room-temperature butter is ideal, but I never remember to take the butter out of my freezer in time. To do that, I would have to know about the baking hours in advance. That is just not a practical expectation. So I end up trying to “soften it” in the microwave, or on the windowsill, or on the stove while the oven preheats. Spoiler alert: that doesn’t work and sometimes you end up with butter all over your leather couch.

3) Time expectations. Recipes like to predict how long it will take you to make the food. They divide the time into “prep time” and “cooking time.” These estimates are grossly inaccurate. Who makes these predictions? Whatever the predicted time commitment, I end up doubling it, and my oven just sits there preheating for hours wasting valuable energy-bill money.

4) Paddle attachment. My kitchen is small. Counter and cupboard space are at a premium and are usually being used by things like sippy cups and almost (but not completely) empty boxes of cereal. So excuuuuuuuuse me for not owning a standing mixer, EVERY BAKING RECIPE EVER. I don’t have a paddle attachment to gently mix your precious ingredients and you can stop making me feel inadequate about it.

Sometimes I think the food can sense my incompetence. It knows I don't know what I’m doing, so it acts up. It's just like students in a class with a substitute teacher. "She has no idea what ‘julienning’ is, you guys! Quick, while she looks it up on Google let's all burn to the bottom of the pan! Hahahahaha!” 

It’s just a theory.

Clearly I've had several kitchen disasters, but occasionally I am successful and make something delicious. When this happens, I am so amazed with myself that I drive my loved ones crazy saying things like, "This is pretty good, huh?" and  "I made this. From scratch.” and “Did you know you could make salad dressing? I didn't." and "Wow. I can't believe I made this. Like, it was just a bunch of random ingredients and now it's THIS!"

By the time the meal is done, no one will make eye contact with me.

But guys, I am NOT going to give up on my dreams. This birthday cake is going to HAPPEN. It’s going to be GOOD. I am confident and that is why I am using a lot of CAPITAL LETTERS. One day my children will tell their friends "My mom is a good cook. She always makes us delicious birthday cakes from scratch that never have hard chunks of brown sugar in them.”

Mark my words.