How Baking Shaped Me

      

                                               

For many people, the events of their early childhood are what shape them as adults. For me,[b] my 

earliest memory of childhood is messy. Flour all over the counters, frosting on my nose, and 

pink food coloring staining my hands. [c]My mama was pregnant with my first baby sister and I 

was absolutely over the moon excited. One thing about my mama, when she was pregnant

she had a constant sweet tooth, and me being a very curious child, wanted to be involved

in absolutely everything. As you can probably imagine, baking with a child who wants to ask

a million questions is pretty time-consuming. So, we spent hours mixing ingredients and

 decorating cupcakes to spell out my new little sister’s name. Johanna.         From then on, every time [d]

she was pregnant,[e][f] for all nine months, my mama and I baked everything under the sun. That’s 

where my love for baking began. When I was eight years old, I moved in with my grandparents. 

And my mother moved to Atlanta with all of my siblings except for Johanna. Our family was 

pretty rocky, and I was, of course,e emotion, al not being able to be around my siblings or mother

 anymore. This sent me into a bit of turmoil. I was always an emotional kid, but not being 

around the people who I loved the most was of course really difficult to deal with for a child who 

didn’t understand the situation.  One of the only things that kept me at bay[g] was baking, and with 

my grandmother always at work and my grandfather taking care of Johanna, I felt like I had lost 

baking too.         So, I rallied all the courage I had and decided it was time to be a big girl and learn how to do things myself. [h]It turned out a mess, and not a fun one this time.[i] As I’ve[j] 

mentioned before, I was a pretty curious kid, but I was also a quiet one. I had soft footsteps,

 didn’t talk much, and was often forgotten by the adults in the room. This meant I regularly got 

away with things due to the adults not knowing I was doing them. Which is why I was convinced 

I wouldn’t be caught. However, I was not the only curious child in the house.         As I readied all my [k]

ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, using a recipe of my grandmother's I had found, I 

heard a small voice. You see, I’ve never been the tallest person, so I was standing on a chair to 

reach the flour, and was very startled hearing a sudden “What are you making,g sissy?” Johanna 

had scared me enough that I lost my balance, sending the flour to the floor, and me off of my 

chair. She rushed to help me up, and when I’d explained I was making cookies,s she looked at .me 

with the cutest pleading eyes, asking, “Is it okay if I help you? Of course I couldn’t say no to 

that. She helped me clean the flour, and then we got started with mixing ingredients. I measured 

every ingredient before letting her pour it into the bowl; she cracked the eggs while I picked out 

the shells she dropped into the mixture, and I shaped the cookies while she chose instead to 

sample the unfinished product. Once the cookies were done, I almost had to force her to wait for 

them to cool, but when they did, I asked her if they tasted like our mothers; she told me 

“Not really, but I like these because I made them with you”. After that, I decided to continue.

my baking journey, whether it was for fun or to get rid of stress, which is more often than not my 

main reason.        A few years later, in 2023, my aunt got married. By this time, my love for baking

 

had spread through the family,y and I had been dubbed the “baker of the family”. I was staying at 

my aunt's house when she asked if I could make something for her wedding. Now I’d never 

made a huge wedding cake,e but she told me she wanted something special for her soon-to-be 

husband BJ. “Have you ever made a cheesecake?” she asked me. I told her, of course I have; it had 

actually become one of my favorite things to bake. She told me to take out my phone and go to 

my notes app, “I have a bit of a special request for this cheesecake”.         Like me, BJ also had 

a pretty messy childhood that led to him staying with his grandparents more often than he stayed 

at his actual house. While at his grandparents' house, his grandmother would experiment with 

baking and always called him her “taste tester”. My aunt figured out his favorite recipe of hers. 

and wanted it made for the rehearsal dinner as dessert. She made sure I was listening before 

firing off her order, “A caramel apple cheesecake made with a graham cracker crust, cinnamon 

apple topping, a caramel filling, homemade cinnamon whipped cream, an apple crumble topping, 

and lastly, a caramel sauce made from scratch. Do you think you could do that?” I stared at her 

for a bit. “You know I’m not a professional, all right? You should really know that.” I felt the need to 

warn her; I wanted to make it very clear that when I say I “bake,” it’s as a hobby and to show 

people I love them. She smiled and told me,e “I think I have more faith in you than you have in 

yourself, but if you really don’t want to do it, you don’t have to, no pressure, but I believe you 

can”. Eventually I gave in; I agreed to make the cheesecake on one condition. BJ tastes it before 

it’s served.                 I started working on the recipe a month before the wedding. There was 

absolutely no way I was gonna make someone's grandmother's dessert and not make sure it was 

absolute perfection.  The actual cheesecake was the easy part, that I could do in my sleep. But 

the smaller details were a little trickier: the apple crumble topping, the caramel sauce that I burnt 

many times, making sure the apples were just done enough not to get soggy. All the smaller 

things that made it perfect. I made so many different variations, trying my own spin on the recipe. 

for a month; I think it was the most time I’d ever spent in the kitchen.         About a week before 

the wedding, I visited my aunt to bring her the finished recipe. I called BJ downstairs,s and he 

gleefully grabbed a fork to taste my work. I felt like my stomach was in knots waiting for his 

final verdict. “You sure you used your own recipe for this, and no cheating by using a box 

mix?” He asked. I told him it was all from scratch, ch and he smiled,d telling me that while the 

nostalgia may have made his grandmother's recipe the best he’s had, no one else before me had 

ever come close to beating it. Those words made me light up. The night before the rehearsal 

dinner,nner I made sure to make two cheeses. When they were served, and people asked where 

they were catered from, I shyly accepted all compliments. I've never been a boastful person, but I 

was pretty proud of myself that day. It felt good baking for the people I loved to help them. 

celebrate such a momentous day.         I started thinking of all these memories I have of doing what I love for the people I love, and even when I need some extra love myself. Making cookies 

with my little sister, a cheesecake for a wedding rehearsal, cupcakes to celebrate a new life 

coming into the world. All messy and complicated things, and all so beautiful as well. Baking 

can sometimes be a slow process, but within that process, I have found peace and joy. Life can

be messy and frustrating, but you can always make it something sweet.