I didn’t really enjoy cooking, I cooked because I had to mostly, I can’t say I ever did it for fun. My children loved to bake, I loved to help them, I’d weigh out the ingredients and read the recipe, I’d take them out of the oven for them and then I’d wash up. They would always decorate a special cake for me, and I’d savour it with a well-deserved cup of tea.

It’s funny how our preferences change isn’t it. I now look forward to our baking club, it is quite a highlight in our social calendar. Baking with friends, at a leisurely pace when you know you won’t have to wash up is a lovely way to spend a morning. 

We discuss in advance what we would like to make, and the kitchen team prepare everything we need. All we have to do is sit around the table, we stir, and we knead, we roll, and we whisk. It really is a lot of fun and gives us lots to talk about.

This week we made cupcakes, not the most exciting thing that we’ve made but you can’t go wrong with a cupcake, who doesn’t enjoy a cupcake or two?

We prepared our batter using the creaming method and it was a good job there were a few of us there to help, creaming butter and sugar together is arduous work, we will request an electric whisk next time. 

While they were baking, we made a cup of tea, the room smelled amazing, and made us feel hungry. We couldn’t wait for them to cool down to try one, we laughed recalling all the times we’d told our children to let them cool and here were we burning our tongues. Don’t tell them.

We decorated the cooled cakes and distributed them around the home to the other residents and team members, they were all incredibly grateful. We haven’t decided what to bake next time, I quite like the idea of jam tarts, although they do take a very long time to cool down.