What Does Baking Teach Us About Life? Unfortunately, too much!

Welcome back to The Kitchen! So it’s been a while. I took the FE exam yesterday and hopefully no engineers read this because they will judge me. It’s not that the test was hard, but I was diagnosed with being an idiot a while back and it seems to inhibit most of my life. Another aspect, something I have covered previously, is that I am failed evolution. How you may ask? When humans became a thing, Fight or Flight was invented. I think. Anyway, fight or flight appears in seemingly stressful situations, and my ultimate stress ended up unfortunately being exams. Just think, our ancestors and previous versions of ourselves before the updated DLC punched dinosaurs and Nazis and it was awesome and I get panic attacks after looking at a sheet of paper. My fight or flight itself is also broken because, impressively enough, my fight is to vomit. No really. It really is. My 23andMe showed that I am actually a turkey vulture.

This is hilarious please clap.

WOW this turned into a journey into Leah’s Lounge. This isn’t baking like at all. Sometimes I make the title for the post before I make the actual post. So what does baking teach us about life? Unfortunately, way too much. I’ve learned baking involves a lot of things.

1) Forethought - careful consideration of what will be necessary or may happen in the future.

I was not born with forethought. Baking has taught me that it’s something I really need. Example, back in FirstGen Leah Baking, something that happened was I was attempting to make pretzel bread. The recipe called for milk. I never really buy milk. So that recipe was RUINED. Forethought means to think ahead of time. Consider that maybe you’ve been craving pretzel bread so it’ll be good to check the recipe before you’ve had half a can of a brewski and put your pajamas on and would rather combust than drive to Kroger. Maybe forethought is in the baking aisle somewhere. If it’s not included on the Target or Kroger app and finding it would require me to ask a store employee, I’m uninterested.

2) Failure - Bad news everyone, you will experience so much failure.

Well, at least I do. Things don’t rise correctly. Cheesecakes crack, and as a result I do too. It all happens. And how do we learn to deal with these failures? Bottle them up, so very very very deep. Cover the cheesecake with a Ganache. Eat your ugly bread in a dark corner while sobbing. Fail repeatedly and attempt to learn. Then don’t, because I learned something else through baking.

3) I am so stubborn

I read the directions. I understand what I need to do to be successful in each endeavor. Then, I just don’t do the thing. Blatantly and outright, I just don’t do it. I ask myself: Leah, why aren’t you doing the thing? And I laugh and say that’s future Leah’s problem. Usually, future Leah seems so much further away, but with a 20 minute cook time for the bread or the cookies or the cake or the pasta, life comes at you fast. You end up meeting future Leah and wow she is always so annoyed with past Leah. I have no advice for this one, I guess just try to be better. Or, be self-aware, because that seems to be the farthest I’ve gotten

4) Baking is so rewarding

Any hobby is rewarding in it’s own way, and getting that little punch of sweet, sweet serotonin when someone walks out of their way in the office to tell you your cookies are incredible is a great feeling. Being able to look at how bad your FirstGen baking experience was and then compare it to your current product and creations just boosts you up and reminds you you’re capable of learning. I hope y’all find something that makes you feel that way. Whether it’s video games or competitive napping or honestly just being cool with being alone with your thoughts for an hour, it’s all something and I guarantee you guys are doing a great job, and I am proud of you.

Below I am including a picture I edited of myself because I made homemade butter today for some reason. We have mason jars in the Shultzor household now so anything is possible in terms of doing stuff with mason jars. I’m gonna release an actual Lounge Post about me taking the FE exam as per the request of my friend Josh who texted me saying he expected a post on his desk first thing on Monday morning. While I can’t guarantee Monday morning, I truly can’t guarantee anything. Such is life. See you next time in The Kitchen.

Incredible, huh?