Love Notes

 Often things are not as bad as they seem.  

It is all a matter of perspective. I was reminded of this when I tried a recipe out of The Baking with Kim Joy cookbook. Kim Joy was a contestant on The Great British Bake-off who makes ridiculously cute eats. Most of them are almost too cute to want to eat.  I was gifted her cookbook recipe for Christmas and used Mother’s Day as an excuse to try something out of. 

This is what  I was trying to make.

This is what they looked like coming out of the oven.

This is what they looked liked iced.

The entire time making them I was nervous. I am admittedly more of a cook than a baker. Baking is really precise with measurements and if you don’t follow it exactly then the chemical reactions in the bake will be off and it won’t turn out right.  Cooking is more forgiving. If you screw too terribly cover it in cheese or gravy.  Many things have been fixed with cheese, gravy or both. (This is where my theory on the creation of Poutine is pretty sound.) 

While I agonized over how imperfect the bake was and how Paul Hollywood would hate it, I forgot something very important.  These treats were not for Paul Hollywood. They were for my mother in law. My mother in law didn’t see how shaky my icing was, or how imperfect the envelopes were shaped. She saw how much effort my husband and I put into making them for her. We did everything from making the jelly from scratch to rolling the short bread to keeping the cats from tasting them.  It was an adventure that I was able to have with my husband for a beloved member of the family that appreciated our efforts.  

Sometimes you have to step back take a breathe and give yourself a break.  It is about perspective and the hardest  view to change is your own.  Often things are not as bad as they seem.