My other creative voice gets heard through flour and sugar.  I create cakes.  LOTS of cakes.  For a home baker with a crappy, dysfunctional kitchen and a dynamite mixer, I manage to knock out some pretty decent pieces of epicurean delight.  Tomorrow another whisper of my voice will go out the door to a surprise 50th birthday party.  I’ve had more than one person shudder at the momentariness (is there such a word?) of my cakes.  So much work.  So delicious.  So gone before you can wipe the candles clean.  How can I stand to watch them get devoured they ask ?  Well, I say why not ?    My cakes get to be oohed and ahhed over at the event.  My cakes get to be immortalized in family pictures.  My cakes are made to please and as long as that goal is met, I’m good.  Now you don’t want to talk to me while I’m making the cake but after it’s all done – I feel the love.

You see my cakes are made from real ingredients.  I actually use butter in my icing.  You can taste the sweetness of the sugar, the creaminess of the butter and warm hit of vanilla as you bite in to my cakes.  My cakes actually contain eggs and salt and cocoa and don’t make you feel like you just swallowed a piece of used tire.  My cakes are an expression of my creativity and the celebration I have the privelege of being a part of.  I’ll never be the next Ace of Cakes but then I have no aspirations to that greatness.  I love watching and stealing an idea here and there but overall I’m happy with my efforts.  My efforts are to express my voice and my voice tells the story of someone’s special day.

Here are a few of the highlights:

I get to celebrate babies:

I get to celebrate baptisms:

I get to celebrate marriages:

I get to celebrate milestones:

And one of my personal favorites – birthdays !  This for me is one of the most special because of the faces of the kids when their cake arrives and they are so surprised ! It’s just unbelieveable.  More than once the birthday boy or girl has said, “It’s exactly what I wanted” or “It’s too pretty to eat”.  How cool is that ?

Sometimes the adults get a bit excited as well which is equally nice:

I have made every one of my children’s cakes except for their baby shower and I’ll blame the c-sectoins for that.  I have made cakes for my mom.  I have made cakes for my husband.  I have made cakes for family, for friends, for friends of friends, for customers and of course for Guides.  One of the best things I ever heard was that someone asked me to make her daughter’s 1st birthday cake because she could tell my cakes were made with love.  Without saying a word, my creative voice was heard.  What better message to be sending out in to the world than that of love.  Gotta love that feeling.