The HeartBake

Round One: Gateway Cupcakes

I discovered I enjoyed baking after experiencing an earth-shattering, world-ending breakup in my early twenties. One where the memory of the relationship itself is extremely patchy because I’m convinced my brain actually 404 errored and then erased the hard disk to protect itself from the virus of heartbreak pain.

It happened at an age when I believed myself to be invincible, immune, God’s gift to this generation… the golden child. So much so that the one thing I do remember with surprising clarity is yelling mid-breakup, “YOU WILL NEVER FIND ANYONE AS GOOD AS ME.” Not my most gracious moment…

The sting of rage eventually wore off, leaving a hangover of sad. I craved feeling needed, feeling valued, feeling instantly useful. I needed to do something—something that would produce immediate results and make me feel like I wasn’t totally useless.

I was very randomly gifted a Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for my birthday. As a student operating from a cramped student kitchen with very little equipment, I decided to give it a go. I took myself to Argos and procured a cheap mixer and dug out a muffin tin from under the oven and started to bake.

I started with cupcakes. Simple things that required very little technical skill and just required me to follow instructions. I was really surprised that I could quite easily produce 12 fairly similar, pretty nice looking and relatively tasty little treats. With a teensy bit of discipline, intent and time I had produced tangible, edible results. How easy it was to feel gratified—mix, bake, eat, receive praise, repeat. The ritual of it started to soothe something broken inside me.

Round Two:He’s Your Manager, Not Your Best Mate

Many years later, I found myself desperately sad again. I had experienced yet another earth-shattering, world-ending breakup… but this time it was a job that broke my heart. I turned once more to baking to save me.

I’m not going to pretend I’m an excellent baker. I’m just pretty good at following recipes and derive calm from the ritualistic nature of measuring out flour and sugar and butter, creaming and folding and whipping, and then offering careful goop into the oven, not knowing what will face you when the timer goes off and you open the oven again.

Its always an emotional rollercoaster. Worrying whilst the goop cooks: Is the goop the right texture? Did I beat the butter and sugar together enough? Is the oven the right temperature? Did I use the right kind of tin? And then frantically stopping myself from worrying in case the bad juju of the worry goes into the cake, and then chanting om namah shivah and blowing good juju into the oven.

And then pure relief when the goop comes out edible, joy when people other than myself enjoy the goop, and finally the deep sense of accomplishment when the goop is completely gone. Its a longer lasting dopamine hit than my night-time doomscrolling… 

Never intentionally but almost compulsively, tarts and cakes flew out of my oven. The joy they brought to my the mouths of friends and family was addictive. I would wait expectantly whilst they took their bites, hungry for feedback, for validation, for appreciation. I was greedy for it. Sometimes I produced utter stunners, like the onion tart that was consumed within minutes of being out of the oven. Sometimes they were utterly butters,* like the Bakewell tart that just tasted greasy.

But each one made me feel once more useful and valuable and appreciated.

Round Three: The Cheating Cheesecake

Most recently, having found out the hot mess of a guy I’d been seeing was two-timing me with an ex-partner of ten years AND was also window shopping on Hinge (greedy bastard), I was emotionally adrift once more. I was in Kenya staying with a family friend, without my usual support system, without a job (see above re: professional heartbreak), and with no direction. I needed to bake to soothe myself. I needed the familiarity of my quiet kitchen and its selection of carefully curated bowls and spatulas. I needed the certainty of a well-tested recipe. I needed to produce something to prove to myself that I was not a piece of garbage.

I decided to keep it simple and do a fridge-set cheesecake. It was for my Mami’s birthday, who had expressed a love of Biscoff, and so it would be a Biscoff cheesecake.

But of course, nothing was simple. The bowls were all too wide and too shallow, and they were stainless steel. There wasn’t a whisk in sight. I had to use cup measurements instead of a scale (something I loathed—ew, American baking). The ingredients were all different and tasted different. The cream cheese was salty for some reason, and I couldn’t find double cream in the supermarkets without an E number in it. It transpired that Lotus Biscoff was a goddamn luxury ingredient in this part of the world. My father managed to source a packet of biscuits for the equivalent of £5, and I tracked down a jar of Biscoff spread that cost me just over £10.

I could have chosen to interpret all of this as an unmistakable sign from the universe to give up on baking to soothe myself and just take up smoking instead.

But a little of my hope returned thanks to the trusty mwiko (God bless the universality of the wooden spoon), and a cheesecake was beaten, poured, chilled and assembled. I delivered it to my Mami with my usual trepidation. I knew it didn’t taste exactly like it was supposed to, and my usual pre-taste test anxiety monster was alive inside me saying all manner of mean things. I had just taken my seat upon the Emotional Rollercoaster once more.

Mami loved it. And my cousins loved it. And she was really grateful that someone had brought her a cake for her birthday. Her appreciation soothed me, made me feel like I was in fact not a piece of garbage, and that I could still produce something of value.

Fully Baked…Almost

Numerous heartbreaks and countless tarts and cakes later, having developed my skills as a baker and my confidence in the kitchen, I still turn to baking when life feels beyond my control. I’m not claiming to be the best baker in the world, but baking does remind me of the resilience I have within me. That I know how to make myself feel better no matter where I am, regardless of which kitchen I find myself in or what the butter might taste like. And that eventually, everything works out for the better (or at least I get to eat cake).

I think back to 21-year-old Ayushi yelling at the pasty white boy who had just told her he no longer loved her. She was right, and she is still right. How in the world would any of these boys or jobs ever be able to level up from me? I was and will always be the best thing that ever happened to them.

In the epic words of Cardi B: “I’m a boss bitch, who you gonna leave me for?”

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*Butters is the youth people term for ugly… I think.