*** i like... baking***

[These are a self creation: strawberry tartlets with chocolate cream]

It has recently occurred to me that I suffer from the constant need to do something, to be busy with some activity- but with extreme adversion to anything that i am 'supposed' to do. I have termed this disorder "Hyperactive Progression Dystrophy". I think it is for this reason that I like baking.

When everything else in my life is in dischord, i find something deeply comforting in the certainty of baking. You are simply required to mix together a bunch of ingredients, put them in the oven and you are guaranteed some form of delicious outcome, whether it be bread, pie, cake, tart, strudel, cookie, muffin, sconne, croissant, shortbread, biscotti, rusks, crackers or cupcakes.

There is also something deeply relaxing about the use of electric mixers and rolling pins. I finally understand a man's obsession with powertools... only in a 1950s housewife kind of way.

I call it baking serenity. We already buy into art therapy, logically there should be something like baking therapy? If not maybe i should patent that idea.

It is like painting with food. Composing with your tastebuds. Rarely are all five my senses stimulated simultaneously as they are when i bake. I could go on for pages about the therapeutic drone of a food processor or the satisfying squelch of sticky dough through my fingers, but I think you get the picture. Simply put: Baking is awesome. I like baking...