Robbie's inspiration

Irene Waters’ Times Past prompt for this month is Childhood Cooking Experiences. Write about how cooking was presented to you as a child. Did your mother set you up to cook by working side by side with you in the kitchen? Did she set you up to be kitchen illiterate?”

You can read Irene’s lovely post here: https://irenewaters19.com/2018/04/01/cooking-with-mum-childhood-experiences-times-past/.

My Mother is an amazing woman. We have always been very close and we do lots of lovely things together. Cooking is not one of them though. I don’t like to cook and I have zero interest in it. Why this is I cannot say. Maybe because my Mother was not a very adventurous cook and so our meals as children where quite repetitious. Maybe because I considered cooking to be something that housewives did and I never saw myself in that mould. I have never cooked a meal for my husband during our 17 years of marriage. When we first got married, Terence cooked and now my Mother cooks for us.

I do bake. That is something else entirely though. I bake rich and fantastic cakes, biscuits and pastries. I turn them into towers and caves and houses. I consider this to be art. The art of taste mixtures and the art of presentation.

Cakes by Robbie 1

I like to bake other things too. Cupcakes, pizza, sausage rolls and quiche. Oh, and then there is bread. I have been on a bit of a bread binge lately with my new bread machine. I make a different type of loaf every week. When I have made all the recipes I will start experimenting.

This love of baking does not come from my Mother. She was never a great one for baking. I started making cakes when I was about 10 years old. At that time my Mother was very busy looking after my younger sisters, Hayley and Laura, who were 2 and 1 year/s old, respectively. I always approached baking like a science and measured everything very carefully. What I made always turned out well and tasted delicious too.

As I got older I started to experiment with recipes and my skills improved. As soon as my boys were old enough, I started baking with them. They learned how to make biscuits, scones and cakes and how to lick out the bowl and put it on their head. Sometimes after we had baked together during the summer, I would put them together in the baby bath on the lawn outside to wash off all the cake batter.

I have baked most of their birthday cakes and some for other children too. I also baked cakes for my sisters birthdays, kitchen teas and stork parties.

Cakes by Robbie 2

Now that Michael is a bit older, he often bakes with me. This past weekend we made chocolate and vanilla marble cupcakes with white chocolate fondant icing and a blackberry on top for a taste contrast.

Cakes by Robbie 3

Here is a short 99-word flash fiction I wrote to go with this post. It is called Forward Thinking.

“Here is my funeral plan, boys,” Lilly said, handing a neat folder to her astonished sons.

“It contains the instructions for my memorial service and tea. I want people to focus on the things that I loved, my baking, writing and fondant art. I don’t want people wasting speech time on my formal employment achievements. I have selected “These are a few of my favourite things” as my opening song. I want James to play it on the organ. I have requested that a cream tea be served afterwards including my home made strawberry jam and milk vanilla cupcakes.”

Have a lovely Monday

Robbie

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