Why are so many of us in love with baking?

Perhaps it’s the challenge of taking a few ingredients and making something delicious and beautiful out of them. When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that flour added to other staple ingredients can result in a huge tiered cake! I think this is why I like baking so much. The creative process is so much fun and I enjoy the discipline of baking.

I LOVE baking but I HATE cooking.

Well, hate is a strong word but I dread dinner time each day because I just don’t enjoy cooking meals. I’ll spend days and days making a large cake and sculpting flowers out of sugar mediums, or making loads of other edible decorations, but I dread spending an hour making dinner. Why is this? I often am told that people are either bakers or cooks and that they are rarely both. I agree with this. I have several friends who love to cook but just don’t have the patience for baking. Likewise, my friends who enjoy baking typically don’t like to cook. Interesting isn’t it?

Baking requires so much attention to details and you have to follow the rules. Every step is important and one misstep can cause the entire recipe to fail. Because of this you have to concentrate- your mind can’t be in several places at one time and perhaps this is the true reason some people like to bake. It can be relaxing, very relaxing, as you concentrate on the recipe at hand or focus in on a sculpted piece or even sketch a new design. The entire process, from start to finish, can be very rewarding as you see what can be achieved with techniques and ingredients. As time goes on, you gain new skills and try your hand at working with new edible mediums.

There are so many sugar mediums now that it’s nearly impossible to be bored with sugar artistry. Here are a few mediums that we work with: fondant, gum paste, royal icing, gelatin sugar sheets, rice paper, wafer paper, isomalt, modeling chocolate and much more. Each one of these items requires a different skill set and offers unique options for sugar work.

What do you enjoy about baking and which mediums do you like to work with?

Happy baking, friends!

Jenean
XOXO