I Jumped In…Finally!
Baking has always been there for me. I didn’t have the most idyllic of childhoods, but in my teens I found baking. My mom and I had an arrangement where I would bake and she would clean, then we, along with my brothers, would enjoy the dessert together, usually cookies. As I look back on this time of my life, I can see that baking had become a safe haven for me. It was something where I could focus on something other than the mess that was my family and the loneliness that was my life.
After my Sophomore year of college, I had the opportunity to travel to Scotland for the summer. I worked in a little café off the Royal Mile with a woman, Ann, a born and raised Texan who had spent 20ish years in Germany and was now working her way towards 15 years in Edinburgh. She had collected recipes as she traveled and this café was her baby. She served all sorts of people while also giving purpose to those who worked for her. I wanted to learn everything I could from her. It wasn’t long into my tenure there that Ann invited me to bake with her. I would come in at 8:00 am (we opened at 10) and she taught me some of her simpler recipes. Of course, she could only trust herself when it came to important things like cakes and pies.
One day, while we were serving lunch, someone wanted a slice of cake, so I picked up the knife and served them a slice while all the workers around me watched and held their breath. Turns out Ann was the only one who could cut Ann’s desserts. I too held my breath as she came out of the kitchen. I braced myself to be chided for my actions, but rather, she made sure I knew to give them a big, generous slice and that was that. I could cut Ann’s cakes. Now, I’m not sure if she let me do it because she trusted my baking instincts or if it was because I would be gone in a few weeks and it wasn’t worth the fight…I choose to believe that it was because she trusted me. That was a rough summer for numerous reasons, but Ann and the café, particularly the scones, were a bright spot.
It was upon my return home that I first started fantasizing about becoming a baker. It is perpetually spring and I would have this cute little storefront with a few small iron tables and chairs out front with an awning extending a few feet out over the door. People would come in looking for something sweet and would leave with a smile and a sense of community.
But that wasn’t for me. I was going to be a scientist or a teacher or whatever! I just knew I wasn’t going to be a baker. So, I set the fantasy aside and got back to reality.
Of course, I still baked. And along the way, I would do desserts for a few friends’ weddings, would try new recipes, and would always bake some scones on the weekends with new and different flavors. The height of my baking escapades was while I was in Seminary in Denver. I lived with 5 other women, so I had plenty of people to share my scones, cookies, pies, and cakes.
And every now and again the idea of being a baker would creep back in. I was so close in the summer of 2016 to selling my baked goods at a farmer’s market. So close! But, it still wasn’t for me.
Then I moved to Illinois where I was a pastor for two years. This was one of the hardest, darkest times of my life. So, in my emotional turmoil and distress, I had no energy for baking and I started to forget about the safe space that it seemed to provide for me.
I left that position and my husband and I moved to NW Indiana and I started baking again! And with the baking came dreaming about opening a bakery. Now, after a YEAR of contemplating, I decided to jump in! I recently had a kid and moved to part-time in my day job, so why not now? What could go wrong???
