5 things I learned from baking a cake.

I’m not a natural host. On the continuum of introvert to extrovert, I fit somewhere in the middle - happy to stand up and present in front of people, but also need time on my own to recharge my batteries. I thrive on connecting with people, however the thought of planning and executing an event causes me a lot of anxiety. So I generally avoid hosting and prefer to go out with friends instead.

Since having kids, I push through those feelings twice a year to host a birthday party for my daughters. To me, they are two people worth celebrating, and I want them to know that! It’s also a great opportunity to celebrate the beautiful friends we have made in our community.

I do try to ease the stress by keeping things simple. Last year I completely outsourced, as I didn’t have the head space for anything more. However usually the parties involve lots of energetic children in a big space with as much of easy-to-make (or heat up/defrost/throw in a bowl) kids party foods as I can muster. Who doesn’t love fairy bread and chocolate crackles??

Recently my daughter Zara requested a penguin party with real penguins for her 8th birthday, even posting a letter to the zoo to request their attendance. I love that she thinks outside the square, however I didn’t like my chances of pulling that off! I told her it was too warm for the penguins, however we would arrange some animal friends to come along. In her excitement, my daughter created a five-page party plan with names of those to invite, food to buy and detailed diagrams of the goodie bags and the cake. The design of the cake was a large round cake with green icing, animal figurines on top and leaves draped down the sides. In prior years, I made all the choices, however it was clear that this year my daughter wanted to take the lead.?

With a couple of weeks to go, I set about finding the figurines and the leaves before deciding on where to buy the cake. I had left it pretty late to have something shipped, so I did some frantic searching on Etsy and the like to find some options. I thought I better give Zara the decision-making rights, and of course she chose the most expensive figurines, an eye watering $75 including express postage. We settled on a cheaper “vine” of artificial leaves. I had planned all along to buy a cake and simply add these decorations on top, however as soon as I ordered the figurines, I knew I couldn’t justify the cost of additional cost of buying the cake, I would have to make it.?

The thought of making a birthday cake fills me with fear. I have had numerous birthday parties for the girls over the years and I’ve never attempted it, always asking my mum (thanks mum!) or buying one. However, I was feeling brave this time, so I gave it a crack. Spoiler alert, it turned out really well! It wasn’t until afterwards (while enjoying a slice of leftover cake!) reflecting on the experience and I realised the lessons I learned are applicable to work and life. I thought I would write them down to remind myself and others:

It’s okay not to start from scratch:

While making a birthday cake is something new for me, it's not a totally new concept! Rather than starting from scratch, I decided to take the option that could save me some time and energy. In this case it was packet cake mix, which already has the portions of the dry ingredients and icing sorted. I decided the cake needed to be three layers, so I picked up three packets, some butter, eggs and milk and I had given myself a head start.?

It’s the same at work, if you’re picking up something new, it can be helpful to ask how other teams have done it, or what has been done before to help you get started. I find it easier to start with something, even if I end up changing most of it, rather than starting with a blank page.?

It’s okay to fail:

I launched in to the first cake all guns (electric beaters) blazing. It was 8:30 pm the night before the party, my daughters were asleep and my husband was coaching a basketball game, so I had plenty of time to focus on the task at hand. I realised I didn’t have a proper cake tin, just one non-stick silicone “tin” which I assumed was as good as anything. The directions stated to cook the cake for 45-50 minutes so I popped my timer on for 45. When I took the cake out it was very clear it was over cooked, perhaps not quite burnt (no smoke alarms went off!) however much darker in colour than I had hoped for. When I turned it upside down on to the cooling rack, the cake stuck to the bottom of the silicone mould and left a hole in the cake where I had prised it off the bottom. It was a mess and I felt defeated. This was the first cake and I’d stuffed it up. I had only bought three packets of cake mix and I couldn’t run to the shops to grab another one. I was faced with a decision, give up now and buy a cake in the morning, or press ahead and aim to make a smaller cake than planned. I was tired and frustrated, but I decided to keep going. What did I have to lose??

At the time this was an instinctive decision, however when thinking back, we make these decisions in work and life all the time. Stop and give up, or persevere? Sometimes it is the right call to stop, however often it’s worth cracking on to see what could happen.

It’s okay to change the method:

Before launching back in, I took a minute or two to think about what needed to change to avoid making the same mistakes. Firstly the “non-stick” tin clearly needed some butter, particularly on the bottom. It was over cooked, so perhaps the oven was too hot, or I cooked it for too long? I turned the temp down slightly and set my timer for 20 minutes. It's better to check it early and often I told myself. I re-read the directions, as I'm a notorious scan-reader, I thought I had better check that I didn’t miss any steps. Voi la. The second cake turned out well. I put it on the cooling rack, and I was ready to make the next cake.?

This reminded me of the many retrospectives I attended when I was working in Agile teams. We would ask ourselves what was going well, what wasn’t going well and what we were going to change to make improvements. Making changes on the run is always better than getting to the end and having three burnt cakes!

It’s okay to be less than perfect:

Fortunately, the next cake also turned out well, so I had two successful cakes. I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t have three cakes to stack up and I was also starting to feel more confident. Maybe I could actually do this?! It was now 11:15 pm, however I decided to have a good look in the pantry to see if I had the ingredients to make another cake. I pulled out the flour, caster sugar and vanilla essence and wondered if I should attempt a third cake? I had questions going through my head - what if the third cake tastes different and everyone realises? What if my own baking doesn’t stack up to the packet mix with the perfect proportions? Am I too tired to follow a recipe (which I don’t like doing at the best of times)??I decided to go for it. I quickly whizzed up another mixture and got it in the oven. The cake looked good when I took it out, however it wasn’t as high as the other two.?

As a recovering perfectionist, I had a moment of disappointment that the third cake didn’t look exactly the same. I quickly remembered that it’s all about the “MVP”, the minimum viable product, and decided to be happy with it. Sometimes our own expectations are higher than that of our customer (in my case, 31 kids between the ages of 3-9!) and it’s not worth the time or energy to try to achieve “perfect”. I left the three cakes to cool and went to bed.

It’s okay for the end product to look different to what you expected:

I got up early the next morning to ice the cake, as I was conscious that there was still an opportunity to mess it up from here. I still needed to finish it in time to go and buy a cake if needed! The brief was green icing, and I had bought some “natural” food colouring. Except I couldn’t find it… I searched in all of the usual places I could have put it, but no luck. I didn’t have time to turn the house upside down, so I had to go and chat with my client (aka my daughter) and break the news that the cake would not be green, or any other colour for that matter. The only option was white. Thankfully Zara was understanding. I sliced the tops off the cakes to make them flat, stuck the cakes together (with the thin one in the middle) and smothered it with white icing. I put the figurines on top and they looked very cute. I then opened up the packet with the vine of leaves, and they looked pretty crummy in comparison to the rest of the cake. So rather than draping fake leaves down the side of the cake as per the brief, I ran outside and pulled some gum leaves and nuts off our tree in the front garden. I didn’t want to stick them to the cake as they weren’t completely clean, so I put the cake on a stand and put them underneath. The cake was done, and it looked pretty good! I was a bit worried showing my daughter as it wasn’t exactly what she asked for, however she seemed chuffed to bits.

It reminded me that we often set out with an idea of how something will be once it’s done, however the path to get there is rarely linear. Invariably we will face challenges along the way, and time is almost always a factor that can send us in a different direction. Perhaps the result will be even better than was was planned??

I never did find that food colouring….

On the day of the party I received a lot of compliments on the cake and it tasted good too. I was reminded that good things happen when you put yourself out of your comfort zone and face your fears, especially when it involves cake!?