Self-celebration, community love, and bread-making
Finding ways to share my birthday with others from afar.
In my previous post, I mentioned that I baked a cake with flavours I would want for my birthday for my Great Canadian Baking Show audition. As this was a week and a half early, I opted to bake myself something completely different on my actual birthday.
This year, I have embarked on a self-love journey. This may surprise some people as I have gotten very, very good at faking confidence—mostly because I put myself out there. I also channel an eccentric style in my day-to-day physical expression, making me look confident to onlookers. The truth of the matter is that I use this like a sort of plumage to attract like-minded people to befriend, and though I personally enjoy my sense of style, I wouldn’t necessarily say I am confident in it.
The same is true for my personal skills and my actions. I have long had incredibly low self esteem—but I don’t let that stop me from doing things I genuinely want to do, even if I don’t feel confident in the desired outcome. That may seem like confidence, but in reality, it’s FOMO. This causes me to, sometimes, rush into things that I may not be ready for, worried that I will never have the chance again. Often, this leads to rejection, which leads to further self-esteem issues. A vicious cycle, but hopefully a relatable one—and one that I can do something about, knowing how it perpetuates. I have been trying to reframe these specific events, however, so that success isn’t the goal—participation is.
So… I’m working on the “self-love” thing. In return, though, a surprising thing has happened: I am getting better at loving others, too. Loving myself as I am has helped me to meet others where they are. Forgiveness for myself makes me more forgiving of others. Though I have always worked to extend empathy and understanding to those I care about, extending it to myself has helped me expand upon that. In addition, I see the difference between doing things out of love and doing things to seem nice or accommodating, which, in turn, has a trickle-down effect on the people around me.
What does this have to do with baking for yourself on your birthday? Well, another form of self-love is self-celebration. You can do something for the people you love, like baking them a fancy cake with their favourite flavours and decorating it with things they like, and then include yourself in that list of loved ones. This is what I opted for this year. Rather than waiting to see what someone else might get me for a birthday treat, I chose what I wanted and made it for myself from scratch, much like I do for my husband’s birthday or my daughters’ birthdays, because I can treat myself with the same amount of care I would for my family.
In previous years, my parents would buy me an ice cream cake with a decoration of my current hyperfixation on it—favourite movies or shows often made the cut. I translated this into bread this year and I made myself a bread flight. I did a savoury bread, a sweet bread, and one that combined both sweet and savoury, with accompanying spreads.
The Offering - sweet and savoury
A circular cornbread made with alkalized black cocoa, molasses, coarse salt, and chipotle. Sweet and spicy and savoury. On the top, a stencil of the logo for Sleep Token (my band of the moment) in alkalized cocoa and powdered sugar. Served with whipped salted honey butter.
38 - savoury
A circular deep red crusty homeloaf made with roasted beet puree, leftover sparkling wine, and cracked black pepper. Scored 38 times. Served with a butter candle, which I had a blast putting together.
Gomu Gomu No Mi - sweet
Blueberry and blood orange dough filled with blueberries, cinnamon, and brown sugar, tightly rolled and sliced into little cinnamon roll shapes and arranged in a circle to make a pull-apart bread—looking swirly, like a Gomu Gomu fruit from One Piece (which my husband and I have been watching through—on around episode 520 right now). Served with key lime sweet cream cheese, which I arranged like a fruit stem. This recipe was made by modifying my Heartbeet Rose Rolls recipe—subbing out the beet puree for a mixture of blueberry and blood orange, and filling it with 2 cups of blueberries, about 4 tbsp cinnamon and about a half cup of brown sugar. I eyeballed the cinnamon and brown sugar, so those measurements are estimates.
After baking these, plating them, photographing them, and sharing them with my family, I had quite a few leftovers. I have grown to enjoy sharing my baking with my friends and community, so I put another call out on my personal Facebook and had around five friends come to pick up servings of the Gomu Gomu rolls. I brought half of the remaining beet loaf to my parents. And my husband brought some of the Offering cornbread to a coworker. We used more of the beet loaf for fondue, and then I took the leftovers, toasted them into chunky croutons, and tossed them into soup.
I am becoming very passionate about giving away my baking for free. I have been told I should open a bakery or a stall, but this is a beloved hobby of mine that I don’t want to turn into something I have to mass produce. Instead, I have been baking mainly with the ingredients I have on hand and trying to create within those parameters. Nevertheless, I have told people that I do accept tips to help offset grocery costs should they feel inclined, but this is never necessary.
All of this is to say that self-love and community support go hand in hand. Only recently have I felt like putting myself out there enough to share my baking with my friends and community in this way, and the results have been truly wonderful. I have a couple of family birthdays coming up in the next couple of weeks, so I won’t be giving away baking in the same capacity immediately, but I’m looking forward to my next creative bake and how I will share it with others when the time comes.
How would you celebrate yourself—and would you share that with your community?
I love this attitude. Also love the bakes!