Baker’s Block

My ancient cooking notebook.

You know how writer’s sometimes get writer’s block? Well, I don’t know if this phrase exists for bakers but I’ve had what I call “baker’s block” for the longest time. I think it started while I was pregnant with my youngest, I was on modified bed rest, I did bake a little. When he was a baby I also would bake a little.  I can’t really blame pregnancy or having an infant. I’m not sure what happened, I just became uninspired to bake. It wasn’t laziness. At the time I had a full time helper, she would help me when I made cookies or cupcakes and help me clean up after. I don’t know what it was. I just didn’t want to bake.

During the pandemic when we were on lock down I started baking again. It was my outlet.  I would take out my stress on the pizza dough I made, or cinnamon roll dough. I would bake cookies, cakes and cupcake… I made new recipes and old recipes.  I was keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t think about everything I was worried about. It helped. I baked a lot for Eid during lockdown. (a Muslim holiday) Then, when lockdown lifted and life started going back to normal, I stopped baking again.

You might think, but you’re so busy! Yes, I am, but that’s not the reason. I don’t know what is. You see, not baking is strange for me. I’ve always baked. I still remember the apple cinnamon cake I made with my sister. I was 9 or 10. Our mom helped with the oven. My specialty has always been cookies. My cakes were usually flat as pancakes except much denser. I had no patients and would put all the ingredients in one after the other. I remember when we first got married, before I had a stand up mixer, I tried making a cake, whisking the eggs into an airy frothy fluff did not happen, I realized that I was looking at pancake thin cake mix, so I turned it into cookie dough and made yummy chocolate chip cookies! I didn’t learn to bake cakes until I was a mother and had kids. I also had much more patience.

With my older kids I was the mom that always sent homemade treats. If the letter of the week was C, I’d send cat shapes cookies. Mini sheep cupcakes for Eid Al Adha (the second Muslim holiday) I enjoyed myself and it brought joy to my kids and their classmates. I have hundreds of cookies cutters, I’m not kidding. I have a lot of baking tools. Especially for cookies. I have a Madeline tray I bought years ago that I’ve never tried. Hopefully that will be one of the recipes I share here.

I used to dream of opening my own bakery. I’ve had multiple dream partners, my husband’s niece, my mom. I’ve actually done research and thought of names and logos. It developed into my “dream” party planning business. It’s nice to have a dream but its much nicer achieving the dream. Realistically, I plan on starting with my party planning business, since I can start on line. It’s actually scary writing this down because it makes it more real. It means I have to really work for this and achieve it and hopefully succeed. My dream is to extend my party planning business to including themed desserts. It’s so much fun baking to a theme. Bat shaped cookies and mummy pizza. I confess not everything I bake looks as aesthetically pleasing as I imagine it would, but I can honestly say everything tastes good. so I have that going for me.

In an attempt to get myself out of this rut, I’m going to make a list of things I want to bake this week and hopefully cross them off. I’ll post on Instagram and Pinterst photos of what I’ve baked and I’ll post the recipes here.

Nuha’s Baking Challenge: (List not necessarily in order)

1.     Sugar cookies:

I think I’ll bake sugar cookies because I have a new cookie cutter I want to try. I’ll post a photo on Instagram when I bake.

2.     Banana bread- mini cupcakes:

I baked so many of these during the pandemic after I accidently ordered way too many bananas and had to freeze a bunch. (I peel them, wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them.)

3.     Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies:

I use my mom’s recipe. They are amazing!

4.     Cinnamon rolls.

5.     Pizza:

My kids have been asking for pizza the past week and I’ve been meaning to make some but, in my defense, we were busy with midterms. They even offered to help. I will defiantly take them up on their offer.

I’m not sure if 5 is over ambitious. I will try to bake in the mornings when the kids are at school. I think I can do this. Follow me on Instagram and Pinterest to see my progress this week.