Baking is a part of the culinary world that differs from the rest on so many levels. Cooking in general is an art form, but baking takes it to a whole different level. It combines science and the power of chemical reactions with the graceful and elegant art forms that decorating showcases.
Baking has the power to bring forth warm, wonderful memories, while sending our taste buds into a state of euphoria. As someone who thoroughly enjoys the arts of baking, enough that I’ve enrolled in school to become a pastry chef, I truly believe that baking is good for your soul, whether you are the one doing the baking, or the lucky one getting to eat the end product. Let us now examine the reasons that baking is good for your soul.
1. It teaches you patience.
Nothing says patience like listening to a timer tick away while you wait for your cake to be finished baking. Smelling the sweet smell of cinnamon buns baking away for gooey perfection, so good you can almost taste them already. And you can't rush things. You can't speed it up. You have to wait. Even if you are the most inpatient person in the world, if you want to bake, you have no choice but to be patient. Baking reminds us of this.
You can't rush perfection. You have to wait for it, you have to give it time to happen. Its something you have to wait for, something you have to just let happen at the speed it was meant to happen.
2. It's a great learning experience.
Do you know how much science is involved in baking? Baking is literally a giant science experiment. You use all those measurement techniques you learned throughout your life in school to measure out your ingredients. Different ingredients react to each other to make dough rise and cake to turn from batter to fluffy deliciousness. Just when you thought you would never, ever use all that science you learned in high school. You just never realize how much science you use to bake.
Only a little too much of a key ingredient makes the whole recipe do something you may not have wanted just because it causes a completely different chemical reaction. Certain types of flours combine with different ingredients better, and some flour needs other things to help it rise. You also get a chance to stretch your creative mind and learn to make things look amazing, and learn what types of decor work with what types of baked goods.
Do you feel your brain growing yet?
3. It's comforting.
Think back to your childhood. How many of your happiest memories involve something special that mom, or grandma, or another relative baked? Biting into your mom's delicious, still warm chocolate chip cookies. Smelling grandma's apple pie baking in the oven, and know that soon there will be warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Or maybe you helped bake special treats with someone in your family.
Perhaps you have amazing memories of home made birthday cakes every year. Was there a special baked treat someone only made on special occasions? Regardless of when or what it was, or who it was the made it, almost everyone has some memories tied to some sort of amazing baked goody. And those memories help us out throughout life. When we are feeling down, we craze those things, Sometimes we just need mom's chocolate chip cookies to get us through a rough time.
4. It bring us together.
As mentioned before, there are a lot of family memories that can be brought bake to the surface through baking. However, there are a lot of tender moments that are again thanks to baked goods. Sitting around the dinner table after a big family meal, enjoying that slice of pumpkin pie. Creating a tradition that lasts well into adulthood of baking Christmas cookies with your mom, which was probably a tradition that was started with her mom.
We spend time passing down recipes and methods of baking these special treats to the next generation because it something that was done for us. We forget about squabbles and disagreements because not sharing these moments with each other would be a million times worse than whatever we are fighting about. These special moments remind us how important family time can be.
5. It teaches us to share.
Baking rarely ever produces only enough for a single person. More than likely you are producing enough for multiple people, especially when making things like cakes and pies. So you have a choice. You can hoard it all and eat it alone. Or you can share. You can share your baked goods with your friends, your family, your co-workers. No matter who you share with, it will surely put a smile on their face, and in turn give you a case of the warm and fuzzy feelings that come along with bringing joy and happiness to others.
Who wouldn't be happy to be the recipient of a cupcake?
There is just so much joy and happiness associated with the art of baking. You can make amazing memories, and start great traditions. You can learn and grow as you get creative with your baking. You can pass on recipes to your children and spend time teaching them to bake these masterpieces.
There's the happiness of sitting around a table enjoying dessert after a holiday meal, or the joy of your birthday cake. The happiness of sharing and the fun of it all. How could something that brings about this much knowledge, joy, happiness and tradition not be good for our souls? It is my recommendation that everyone spends a little more time baking, and finding a little extra warmth (and chocolate) for their soul.
