Confessions of a Mommy Baker

I am a baker. Baking is one of my expressions of love. I bake for special occasions of my dear ones. I bake for my customers whom I value so much. But first, I’m a mommy. I have two lovely daughters-Katy (4yo) and Karis (2yo).

It’s a common knowledge that being a mother of babies/toddlers is one of the hardest seasons of life. But only when I arrived at it when I realized that man, it’s super duper hard. I am working full time as a science communicator. I took biology in college, while I was also serving as a missionary. Then after college, I worked as a community trainor for one of the foundations of the country’s top media agency. I traveled around the country teaching mothers about entrepreneurship until I found another calling-to teach kids. I taught language arts to elementary kiddos for a year, then another school year in a Gawad Kalinga daycare center as a volunteer. Then I started working for an international NGO as a science writer. From college to present, I have been baking as a side hussle. I also attended workshops and classes to learn more. In every season of my life, baking has been there as my fuel. It’s one of my passions ever since. Maybe because my mom has been a homebaker ever since I can remember and kitchen is my happy place. The smell of vanilla, flour, and butter mixed together brings sweet memories to me. So there. My three loves: teaching, writing, and baking. Looking back, I would not have thought that baking would help me learn more about life. The sleep-deprived nights taught me how to manage my time and energy better. The failed cakes and frostings taught me the value of trying again and never mixing negative emotions in the recipe of life. The not-so-friendly customers taught me patience and empathy. And the list of learnings just goes on as I continue on baking and loving. Last year, I turned down the most number of orders. At first, I felt really bad about saying no because of the lost opportunities. Until finally, I understood why I had to say no. I have a baby, who needs me almost 24/7. Whenever I would accept multiple-layer cakes with intricate designs, I had to bake starting midnight until the wee hours of the morning with several pauses in between to breastfeed. I would get super stressed physically and emotionally. My eldest daughter, though less demanding, would also sacrifice time and comfort from mommy. Every time I would finish a cake, I would also get sick because of exhaustion. The worst came when my long-time yaya decided not to work for me anymore. That’s just days before my eldest daughter’s baking birthday bash. We’ve already invited her friends and cousins to come to The Pastry House on her birthday so I they can bake together. My husband was in charge of cooking the meals while we bake with the kids so I had no choice but to bring Karis with me. That was the first time I taught baking and frosted a cake while carrying a baby who didn’t like the presence of strangers. That was when I realized that I have so much in my hands and I had to let go of some things...which includes baking. I also cancelled my baking workshops. I acknowledge that this hard part of life is just a season. It will pass maybe sooner than I expect. And I look forward to the days when I can bake beautiful cakes and teach baking live again. At present, I still bake from time to time but not as much as before. With two kids, it takes so much effort to finish a cake. A mommy baker needs a system of strategies to keep the kids busy and refrain from messing up with the baking process. I keep Katy busy by giving her own set of ingredients to mix and knead. As for Karis, I put her to sleep first or use Youtube to entertain her while I bake.

I also asked the strategies of other mommy bakers from the Facebook group We Bake with Love and here are some of their answers: “I simply let Bryce my kiddo help me in whatever I bake.”-Jennifer Angeles “When I bake, my kids are there helping and waiting to taste what we bake. No matter what I bake, they always find them yummy.”-Jennifer Bustarde “I got 3 kids, 11yo, 2 and 2 months old. I schedule my baking time when the small kids are asleep, then my eldest help me with the task. When my second child wakes up, he serves as the taste tester.” -Valerie Zamora “I let them help by washing all the dishes I used for baking... It’s making them responsible and accountable to the baking business were doing.”-Charm Tsarm “I'll teach him first, then let him do it after me. He mixes the ingredients, greases the pan, sometimes joins me in washing my tools.”-Kathleen Viray

“When my 3yo daughter sees me put on my apron, she would take her own apron too... The first thing i will do is to prepare a clay-like dough for her using little flour and some water and let her play on her own table with her small rolling pin and cookie cutters. Then I will start my work.”-Mhytch Perez

“When my daughter was still in grade school, I tend to let her draw cupcakes and other pastries because she is fond of drawing and sometimes, my finished products are somewhat based on her outputs. Now that she's a teenager, I let her help me do the dry ingredients, cut the tags for my baked products and take a picture of my goodies for promotional purposes.” -Edlyn Limpangan

“I usually bake at night when the kids are already sleeping but there are times that i need to bake at daytime so I can stay on my schedule. So when I bake and my toddler is around I let her watch first her favorite movie. When she’s bored already, I give her some pots, ladles, and mittens...I explain to her what’s going on to feed her curiosity. Hopefully someday she will still be interested in baking and it’ll be more fun.” -Shiela Mae “My 5 yo son helps me in almost everything. There's this time when I fell asleep after making a cake, when I woke up, I was amazed to see my working area clean. I am just so proud to have a son like him.”-Sundae Dantis

Hope other mommy bakers would find any of these tips useful in making their kids understand that Baking is Cool.

I also hope that as mommy bakers, we make our kids part of our baking journeys. We all know that the baking world is a magical place to be in, and it will be more wonderful to have our family share the fun with us. To my fellow mommy bakers, I honor you. Baking is hard. Motherhood is hard. But still you manage to whisk them together to make something beautiful. Some are baking just as a hobby and that’s awesome. Some are baking to earn for a living, bring kids to school, put food on the table, and that’s admirable. We may not be able to put that in our resumes but in God’s book, we’re earning stars. Keep on baking. Keep on loving. It’s our calling. Let’s make this world a sweeter place to live in.

Bake with love.