I lug the oversized red mixer from the pantry to the counter, set the oven to preheat, and check the recipe to make sure I’ve added the right amount of brown sugar. I watch as the mixer stirs, as butter and sugar become impossibly light and creamy. Eggs next, scraping down the bowl after each one. Add cocoa powder, flour, sea salt, mix again. Butter the pan. Pour the batter in the pan, stick it in the oven, and set the timer.
It’s quiet now that the mixer is done, save the hushed sounds of Brandi Carlile coming from a speaker on the other side of the room. I rinse out the dirty dishes but don’t clean them. I sit down with a book instead.
It’s my birthday, after all.
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On the surface, that scene could sound sad. The solitary making of my own birthday cake.
Except it wasn’t. I don’t mind baking; I enjoy it. (It’s doing the dishes I take offense to.) I’m the only one in my family who really bakes. I’d rather bake my own cake, one I’ll actually enjoy, than submit to the horror of a grocery store sugar bomb with 682 ingredients.
I would have done that in the past; pretended baking my own cake was a chore since everyone around me seemed to think so. I would have gone right along with a store-bought version, trying to hide the fact that I scraped all the over-sweetened icing off my plate and straight into the garbage.
Maybe baking my own birthday cake sounds cumbersome. But I’d rather take the time to create something I want, to make it on my own, than to compromise. In a small, sugared way, I see it as a rebellion. It’s an assertion of myself.
Read the rest about birthday cake and the process of becoming over on Motherwell.