Doubt In The Cake

I have often heard it said that, "proof is in the pudding."  For me it is in the cake.  Allow me to digress a bit.   I started really cooking around the age of 8.   Of course my first few efforts were really attempts to mimic the foods that I would watch my Granny & Mama make.   I remember the first time I decided I was going to cook a full meal by myself, I had turned 8, it was summer & my parents were enjoying a Saturday morning sleep in, expecting the kids would be safely tucked away.   I woke up at 6 AM and made my bathroom visit all sleepy eyed and looking forward to jumping back into bed; but midstream an idea struck me to cook breakfast.   Now luckily this story is not a story of the house burning down; it is actually a story of utter shock that an 8 year old that could barely reach the stove did not burn down the house or himself and in turn fried eggs and bacon with some burn but not inedible.  The parents were too amazed I think to consider punishment and instead sat down and ate their breakfast.   Emboldened by my first success I recreated the same breakfast for many weekends to come until the eggs were not as crispy as the bacon and the bacon was no longer charred and so I decided it was time to branch out into making Granny's biscuits.   Baking would hang me up and cause anxiety for years to come.   It was not until I was older that baking a cake did not cause a case of the "quits," to hit.

My family, a true Southern family steeped in good ole backwoods Blue Ridge Mountain fatalism helped profound my sense of doubting myself in all things, not just baking.   My mom's favorite saying which still resonates in my head from time to time is, "well, don't get your hopes up."   Now I know that is just a mom trying to help her child not get their hopes so high that they get crushed when things don't come out exactly as the child wants it to.   But for many years that little saying kept me from starting projects or finishing projects.  

In those adult years when I decided to push through my anxieties and sometimes overwhelming crippling doubt I discovered just how pervasive and malignant doubt can be to the human spirit.   It brings a huge swell of pride and accomplishment every time someone compliments me on a cake, pie, or brownie.   For many years my doubt kept baking a big mysterious scary lion I could not tame.    Maybe it was the reruns of Julia Child's cooking show on PBS or my discovery of Ina Garten (a.k.a. The Barefoot Contessa) on the Food Channel; but both went a long way in dismantling my mountain of fear and doubt surrounding baking.  

Doubt in my life is not a conquered monster long gone.   It remains a malignant part of my complex make up that is from time to time a raging ravishing cancer reeking havoc on even my every day chores.   However,  I am  happy to report that a good portion of the time it becomes more and more a disease in remission with every little triumph and small hill I might traverse.   The one thing I realize is that doubt, with all its debilitation is as only powerful as one makes it.   There is always the possibility that your cake won't rise or your apple pie won't win the prize but the amazing power you create within yourself when you TRY will trump that old doubt monster in submission.   Ask anyone who is addicted to my Outrageous Diva Brownies or Pound cake and I say without blushing they are winners, proof that doubt has no place as an ingredient in any recipe.   Proof, for me, is in the cake!