The children skip out of school and thrust a letter into my hand. It asks if parents would, “bake a cake for the Cake Sale.” It is two weeks away, but the pressure is on and I am already starting to panic.
Thoughts of the nice chocolate cake on display at the local Farm Shop spring to mind. No one will ever know if I destroy the packaging and pretend it is mine. But guilt sets in and my mother says, “As a mother, it is about time you learnt how to bake a cake.” Turning to cooking guru, Mary Berry, I discover a fail-safe recipe. The dreaded deadline arrives. Apron on, children parked in front of a DVD and an assortment of cooking utensils lined up alongside double the ingredients, to allow for disasters. I meticulously follow the recipe and wait nervously, peering into the oven while it cooks. It comes out a little miserable with a sunken middle but it will look fine once the icing is on.
At teatime, my daughter spots the cake and says in amazement, “Did you make that?” They then ask to try a piece which is probably a good idea, given it is a first. Which means that night, I am under even more pressure to repeat the whole exercise again. By 10pm, the finished product is carefully wrapped in foil ready to take to school the next day. Nightmares set in about who in the village will buy it and be exposed to my inept baking. The next day, I guiltily slap a sticker on the top of the cake saying, “Made by a 3-year-old” and ask my mother to drop it in at the school. My strategy is to lie low for the next few days and avoid eye contact with other parents. Later that week, as I am picking up my daughter from school, a voice shouts across the playground, “We bought your cake. It was delicious.” Grabbing the childrens’ hands, I skip to the car and breathe a huge sigh of relief. The mother of three has finally conquered her fear of cake baking.
