Hi bakers! I’m sharing a different kind of post today. It’s not a recipe, not a baking article, and it’s not an update on life. It’s a short post where we can all reflect on what baking means to us, either how insignificant or how profound.
I published today’s post on my website a few years ago, and am revisiting it. I received so many incredible responses, and learned just how profound the art of baking can be.
If these words resonate with you, I encourage you to share what baking means to you.
What Baking Means to Me
Besides being an obvious means to an end (a baked good), the act of baking is a form of my self expression. I create what I want to create, however little or magnificent that baked good may be. A mindless rice krispie treat or a tall, towering wedding cake.
When I worked a 9-to-5 job in a corporate environment, coming home and baking cupcakes (even from a box mix!) helped me relax and unwind. It simply “felt like me.” In a job where I didn’t have much creative freedom, baking truly kept me fulfilled and energized.
And, not to mention, it’s a double whammy of awesomeness… baking makes me happy and baked goods make everyone happy. Spreading joy is immensely powerful.
I was able to make a full-time career out of this passion. 12 years later (!!!), baking still provides the same amount of joy and creative freedom. But on a more serious note, baking also helps manage my anxiety. A chronic worrier since my teen years, I find the structure and focus that baking requires to be soothing. I’m in control of the outcome (well, mostly!) and that control is important during times that my anxiety feels debilitating. Baking is my work, my “me time,” and, well, my medicine.
I’m very grateful I’m able to do it.
And the same may be true for you, too. It’s not just about baking cookies, it’s about the joy and calm that come with it. What baking is to me may be knitting, painting, reading, running, yoga, or music to someone else. How incredible that a hobby, or a job, can be a form of therapy.
So, what does baking mean to you?
Photo credit: Paragraphic
For me baking is a way to show love to those around me by giving them something that is not only yummy but from the heart and it is a way for me to connect to loved ones who are no longer with me but live on through the recipes they passed down to me.
Baking and cooking are something I’ve always loved since my childhood — I have taught my children how to cook and they love cooking too- Sally your recipes are spot on and very tasty – thank you for all your recipes
I loving cooking in general. I love baking as well. I come from a family of cookers my mother was a great cook/baker. My parents had a grocery store , they worked hard to give me a greater life than they had. So she only had so much time but seemed to always find time to cook great meals. I am 100% Italian and my grandfather was a chef. He taught me how to bake a cake (box cake) looking back he was teaching the technical parts of making a cake. So baking is just part of what we do in our family. For me it’s self-satisfying, an accomplishment, I love cooking for my family and others, very gratifying. Also I love trying new recipes, “up go the challenge.”
Cooking always brings me joy!
Nikki
My baking journey started at a very young age; standing on a Costco stool at my granny and my Mom’s hips helping them make birthday cakes, banana pudding and peach cobblers depending on the season. Baking taught me patience, love and giving. I used to work 50 hours a week and come home to bake cookies, brownies, cakes etc for me and my husband to help me unwind and relax. I took the leap in December of 2022 and quit my full time job to attend Culinary school full time. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and I absolutely loved growing my skills in the kitchen. I love seeing the joy on people’s faces whenever they try something I baked, it’s truly one of my biggest passions in life to brighten someone’s day with a sweet treat. Baking is my number one hobby (my new career as well) and I hope to bake up until the day I die!
It started with my Easy Bake Oven and I’ve never looked back! Baking has been a joy through every life phase- from weekly brownie baking as a child, to finding my first baking mentor in my mother-in-law, to my now legendary Christmas cookie bake-a-thon, baking is something magical- a few simple ingredients are transformed into works of creative expression, gestures of love, and shared joy. Simply perfect.
Since I have to eat gluten free, baking means I can have burger buns and donuts and whatever kind of cookies I feel like and pie and cake and wonderful bread. No more commercial products with all the additives…baking means freedom to me.
My job entails buying and selling a product that’s difficult to quantify, and it’s immensely stressful. Coming home to my safe haven and baking- where I have complete control- helps me keep my sanity.
I love to bake and cook for friends and family. It makes me happy and my way to give them joy!
Baking is a repeatable process that yields a result. It grounds me when things get too hectic, when there is too much that is unknown. Baking is measured, specific, and largely predictable. The results are comforting, and delicious!
Baking is not just an additional science-it’s something that I can do outside of work. I now realize that baking for my current apartment staff members, coworkers and sharing my creations with the people I know brings so many rewarding experiences. As I bake and work on new recipes, I find that I can bake more and more creations and desserts from simple to complex–ones that I can feel great about tasting, enjoying, remembering, and sharing with others. I know what ingredients the recipes I follow give me, which makes me happy, since I know what’s going into the product I’m making–things I recognize.
Baking allows me to show my creativity in my creations–whether it’s a completely from-scratch salted honey pie, mini apple rose pies, homemade pumpkin spice cake with a pecan streusel and topped with homemade cream cheese frosting and iced vanilla sugar cookies, or even oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies! It’s truly a labor of love that has me realizing that baking from scratch gives me delicious results as I learn and develop my independence and skills simultaneously.
My Mom baked some when we were kids. Not really sure where I got my desire to bake from but it is something I have always enjoyed! Even more so now that I am retired. I love having family and friends enjoy what I make. And I especially enjoy making bread, fruit pies and scones. There is something very soothing about working with dough!
I have been baking and cooking since I could stand on a chair in the kitchen with my mom. Which started when I was about 2 years old. My mom was an avid baker and cooker and spent tons of time in the kitchen. I grew up watching and helping her bake cakes and cupcakes for family and friend’s birthdays and special occassions, oodles of goodies for Christmas and holidays or baking for no reason at just cause she wanted to. Some of my happiest and most cherished memories are the ones in the kitchen with my mom and my aunts, who are also wonderful and pretty avid bakers. I learned everything I know from my mom and acquired her love for it.
For me baking is love and joy and happiness. It’s how I show my love. I bake for those I love. To share a special treat with them and make them happy. Nothing spreads smiles and brings people together like good baking and cooking. They say baking is best when you bake with love and I believe that to be very true. I bake with love and passion and give a part of myself in everything I make. It’s also therapeutic. It’s a great stress reliever. I love kneading bread. It’s a great release and way to build arm muscles! LOL
Baking is also a great way to bond with family and friends, get kiddos involved and teach skills and share and teach family history and culture. I have been making lefse with my family in honor of my grandpa who taught us and our Norwegian heratige since I was a small child and have passed that on to my son who I will continue to teach. We have a very special Scottish Shortbread recipe that has been in the family for over 100 years. My great great grandmother brought the recipe with her from Scotland. The recipe was taught to and passed down through the oldest daughter in each generation. I started out helping my mom make them until I was taught to on my own and continued as an adult. I didn’t have a daughter so I am teaching my son. And we always pat some into circles with our hands and sprinkle on white sugar the way great great grandma used to in her memory.
I love creating beautiful and delicious desserts. I often bake for church and bake sales or for no reason at all, just the pure desire and love of it. I often feel my mom’s presence in the kitchen with me and i always wear her apron now when i bake. Whether trying new recipes or falling back on old favorites baking is truly a love and a passion for me that I love to share and will always be special and close to my heart.
Baking brings me simple joy I get to share with friends and family
Baking brings me a time to create and reflect on good memories. Today I baked some “quick rolls”.. a recipe from my husbands Grandma’s that was included in a family genealogy book. The recipe only included the ingredients. In her hand writing. No directions. So I thought about what Sally would do. I invited my sisters in law for the results. They turned out awesome! I have the “ White sugar cookies”recipe from her chilling now. It’s fun to think of her baking these same things.
Baking is my therapy. It helps me find my own purpose in life. It lets me give back to all that helps me.
Baking is so creative and therefore fills that niche for me. Nothing makes me happier than cooking something wonderful for family or friends. It’s a joyful thing. I have made many of your recipes and you are a master.
Baking for me holds a kaleidoscope of meanings. Initially it was a place to connect with my mom at a time we couldn’t connect on any other level. Since then I’m her favorite baker and our relationship is spectacular. I always bake when stressed and my employees were always the recipients so they always knew how high my stress level was based on the number of treats I showered on them. Over time my baking has now been directed to funeral luncheons to ease the suffering of families from my church, Christmas cookies by the dozens for all the neighbors on my street and family members far and wide with special requests each year for “remember those cookies you baked with ……”, bars, cakes, quick breads, cookies, brownies, blondies…you name it, I WANT to make it. My greatest joy?! My third son now loves to bake and provides for his clients on a regular basis, asking me for recipe recommendations and sharing new recipes with me. This isn’t to “brown nose” but our favorite resource is your cookbooks and website as we know it will never fail us.
Thanks for the joy you’ve added to my life!
I grew up with 4 brothers and 4 sisters…and my Mom was a cake decorator…she tried to teach my sisters…none were interested…so I took it upon my shoulders…the middle of the 5 boys…I was terrible…but Mom was always patient with me…I learned how to use a rose nail make flowers…I learned how to frost a cake…we baked cookies together for holidays… I do bake for that reason of memories of a lost one…as well as it is a form of therapy.
It definitely helps to keepe sane…well …relatively
..and it is a creative outlet…nowadays I am mainly a cookier….and that does allow for lots of creativity…but I do want to add Sally…that your chocolate sugar cookie is the best recipe ever…they do not need any frosting…but I do frost them…and decorate them…because that is what I do…thank you Sally for all your inspiration
I have made several different recipes, chocolate chip pumpkin cookies, Cranberry/Orange muffins and the Iced Oatmeal Cookies to name a few. I pass them around to the neighbors.
Baking (or cooking) in the kitchen is my “happy place” when I need time to myself and want to create something for inspiration, to destress, or just recall a memory of a recipe my German Mom used to make. I love to look at recipes and the photos and try to recreate them. Of course tasting and eat them is the best part but I usually give the goodies away. Otherwise, my hips would become huge! For every calorie I consume from your delicious chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe I eat, means one more repetition of the free weight or another 30 mins of running! I love to see what’s new in your recipe collection and I have learned from your many recipe tips!
Sharing what I bake with my friends and family is my way of showing that I care for them, I love being able to share delicious food with my loved ones! I also love baking because there are constantly new recipes and flavour combinations to try, or new techniques to learn. It keeps it fun and I love learning from trying new things!
I totally addicted to your recipes! I bake for a number of community activities (baking is my passion ❤️)
and receive such wonderful responses from my “consumers”! I tell them to take a look at SBAddiction posts! Sooooo rewarding, soooo gratifying
I started baking 2 years ago because I was tired of eating restaurant desserts & appetizers that needed 1 or 2 more ingredients to suit me. A muffin would have cranberries but no nuts, for example. I usually make a recipe 5 times (with taking lots of notes) before it’s perfect. Then just repeat unless I see something better, or have a new idea. So now I bake herb bread, loaf bread that most would bake as muffins (because muffins are too difficult to do icing & a loaf is easy to slice after I ice it) and breakfast struesels. My husband is thrilled (he’s the meals cook) & my baking is popular at church as well. I bake because it gives me great pleasure to accomplish something I can do well & it’s obvious that others appreciate it; baking creates a pleasure that repeats itself several times (until it’s all eaten up!). It’s a joy to have a new skill that I taught myself with the assistance of your recipes.
Baking for me reminds me of time I got to spend with my mom. Her grandfather came to America from Naples Italy and was a baker there. When he and my great grandmother came to America in 1899, they worked in a bakery scrimping and saving and opened up their own bakery in 1912. My mother learned from them and passed on the tradition to me. Today I bake every day for my sister and nephew (and our dog, Elizabeth). I get to remember the good times and smells of our kitchen growing up and now everyone gets a tiny bit of “mamma”,”nonna” and tradition.
Baking means love. Love to those you bake for who smile, eat, savor, appreciate, create memories…
I started baking a lot during Covid as my freshman year of high school got cut short. I really loved bringing my food to school to share with friends (though some came and some went). It just really made me happy when they told me how delicious the cookies or brownies or cake was! I have never used another website since I found this in 2020! Now I’m hoping to join a baking club at college this year. Anyway, I guess baking is how I show love and it’s my special gift to friends 🙂
Baking is a way for me to give something delicious (hopefully) to people that I love. There is a warmth and generosity that comes with something homemade that can’t be replicated by a store. It also gets me out of my own head by forcing me to focus on details, preparations and techniques. I do hate all of the dishes, though. Hahaha.
Baking and the love of it goes back to my Grandmother and my Auntie Kay. Both were amazing cooks but what I recall most was the smells that eminated from my Grans kitchen upon arrival at her home. It was a 6 hour drive to get there from Scarborough Ontario to Callander Ontario. There was so much excitement in the air as we knew that homemade bread was to be fresh out of the oven. Her famous butter tarts that she always made with currents , not raisins and a snack before bedtime was dinner plate size pancakes. Her ability to flip those suckers over was just amazing. My aunt baked just as well and she always encouraged us girls to do the same. I started to bake at about age 12. The memories of spending the whole summer there were abundant. She made homemade honey donuts which drew the neighbours to the house just from the smells that reached their nostrils. My aunt was always ready for an adventure, which made my childhood special in so many ways. She was not to be of this earth for a long time. Both her and my uncle were killed in a car crash in 1968. Her legacy was something I would continue with my own family.
Baking is the one thing I am most passionate about! I have been baking since I was very little. I learned quickly how happy it makes people to get something baked just for them. I love hearing stories from people saying things like “this tastes just the way my mom/grandma used to make it” giving them a piece of their childhood or memories of their loved ones is so priceless to me. I love teaching my kids and my nephew bake.. then watch them make their own masterpieces! I have made so many friends along the way with what I think is a universal language – baking.
For me, baking is a PERFECT balance between creativity and science. It’s my happy zen place
I bake because as a child only one aunt was a baker, I really admired her. I have lived my life trying to create a better life for my family , better than i had . From foster home to foster home wanting to just have a Home and a kitchen to call my own.