From working Mummy to baking Mummy

Last year at this time I was working, while also being pregnant, so my life was made up of endless to-ing and fro-ing, running around from here to there and trying to get from one place to another, doing a million things and worrying I was doing none of them well (so, not much has changed, you might say…). So, when I learned that the Girl would have to take in an offering for the school’s Harvest Festival fare, with the proceedings going to charity, I felt it as an imposition and a cause for hassle.

But, not wanting to let the side down, nor wanting her to be the only girl who turned up with nothing, I researched online for ideas and put together a box of stewing vegetables. A decent offering, I thought [see the image on the left].. A shoe box, lined with pink tissue paper and shredded green tissue paper to represent grass, and a selection of seasonal vegetables that cost me no more than a couple of pounds at the supermarket. I thought it looked creative, original, I was pleased with it. But, when I turned up at 3pm to take the Girl to the fare, knowing that the older girls had already been allowed to go on their own earlier in the day, I found to my shame that the box was still there -no one had wanted it. I had not anticipated the lavish display of cakes, cupcakes, biscuits, preserves and other goodies, many of them home-made, others bought from clearly very good quality shops or bakeries, in beautiful boxes or shiny wrappers, with bows, ribbons and other elaborate decorations. Next to those, my vegetables looked woeful, even if they were very nicely displayed, and I left the fare vowing that I would make much more of an effort the next time.

And indeed, this year I was determined to impress. I decided to bake cupcakes, and as we had some bananas sitting on the counter, I decided that using a banana cake recipe would be a nice idea. But would just plain old cupcakes be enough? The answer seemed obvious to me: they would be worthless unless iced, so I would just have to take the time to do that as well. Now, I don’t even own a proper piping set, so I borrowed some nozzles from my lovely friend who is a much more skilled baker than me, and took the trip especially to pick these up. I made two additional trips as well: one to get a box for the cupcakes to go in (found a beautiful flowery one in Home Bargains, so that was good – though I did end up leaving the shop with Halloween dress-up and a few other things, so the trip was quite a bit more expensive than anticipated); the second, to buy chocolate and cream for the ganache icing, and then some pretty decorations to go on top (I found some colourful butterflies and then, still unhappy, I bought some pretty wafer daisies as well). The baking took all day: I prepared the batter and filled the cupcake cases around lunchtime, with a properly screaming and fed up baby for the final 20-odd minutes of the process. I then had to wait for them to finish baking (at this point, counting minutes felt like a very accurate description, watching paint dry comes close to it in the perceived slowness and in the frustration). Then, later, I had to prepare the ganache, wait for it to cool (while ensuring that I stirred it at frequent intervals), then whip it so it could be piped nicely, then do the piping itself. By the end of it all, I had chocolate icing even on my top and on one leg of my trousers and, because I hadn’t noticed this, I’d also got some onto the kitchen counters and cupboards… It really felt that, no matter where I turned, I would find some of the stuff! But, despite this, and despite the fact that I was frazzled, stressed out, tired, on the whole I was happy and proud of myself, because the end result was rather pretty, something I never would have thought I could achieve on my own [this is the image on the right].

Put simply, I had joined in the game, and had been transformed from a working Mummy into a baking Mummy, though by the evening, my motivations were cast into a rather different light… At dinner time, the Girl demanded to have a cupcake of her own (and it just had to have a pink butterfly topper), but then took what seemed like forever to eat it. Coupled with the fact that the Boy started crying like a little banshee (the hour or so around 6 pm really is his witching hour…), the Girl’s slowness really made me explode. I took it to mean that she didn’t truly enjoy my wares, and saw it as a demonstration of ingratitude and unspoken contempt. I immediately took offence and ended up telling her off and forcing her to eat the entire thing even though she was probably full. So, who had it all really been for? Whom was I trying to impress? And had all the hard work really been worth it, if all it would cause both the Girl and me to feel was just aggravation?

By the time the fair itself came, I managed to ground myself again, though. I *had* done it all for the Girl, even if my expectations of her – as it seems to happen so often these days – had been far above her years. I was so elated when she told me – in a proud, hugely excited voice – that she had seen two of her friends buy the last of our cupcakes, and that another one of her friends had told her our cupcakes were the best. The joy on her face and in her voice was all the reward I needed; I had managed to make her proud, and my own hang-ups from the previous night had not managed to dim her enthusiasm. Yes, my motivations were clearly more complex than I had initially allowed myself to realise, but ultimately, the Girl herself is the only one who matters, and I am glad that I managed to do her proud. Although I would like to say that I have learned my lesson, and that the show-offy element is not going to take over next year, I’m sure I’ll work just as hard again, if not more. But as long as the Girl is happy (and as long as she enjoys whatever I make, even if only a little bit) I will consider it a good job done.