Now Open For Business: The Meltdown Bakery of Love

Image courtesy of debspoons / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Happy Holidays! Have you started baking up a storm yet? ‘Tis the season, right? This time every year, visions of sugar plums start dancing in my head, egged on by the sprinkled, sugared, powdered, spiced, frosted, glazed and ganached pretties that adorn magazine covers and websites. As I salivate over these images, I find myself thinking, “I could do that! Those would be so easy and fun to make with the peeps! We are totally going to make those!” Every year, I entertain grandiose visions of spending hours in the kitchen with my peeps. Cupcakes, Christmas cookies, layer cakes. We are going to make them all. They will be lovingly – and perfectly – decorated and taste ah-MAY-zing. And we will have a blast creating both sweet goods and sweet memories.

Um … not so fast.

Baking with children (in my case, twins) takes the patience of a saint and someone with very low hygienic standards. I have neither. Hand in the flour jar? Freak out. Fingers in the batter bowl? Freak out. Utensil licking? Freak out. Sticky hands touching everything? Freak out. Yep. Like a stick of butter that’s been sitting out a tad too long, mama melts down, and my Ideal Reality crashes head on into my Real Reality. And it happens Every. Single. Time.

One day, as we embarked on yet another baking adventure, one of the peeps suggested we open our own bakery. “What should we call it?” I asked. She grinned mischievously, but her response was instant, “The Meltdown Bakery. Because you always meltdown.” Nice. In my defense, I highly suspect those people plot to provoke me. Case in point, they devised some sort of point system whereby they earn “points” when I meltdown.

Curiously, The Meltdown Bakery has evolved into a fun connection. When I announce that The Meltdown Bakery is open for business, both peeps go nuts and start setting up their stepstools, asking which bowls we need, pulling out measuring cups and searching for the chocolate chips (regardless of what we are baking). So, I guess on some level, my dream of happy baking with the peeps comes true. We’ve also amended the name of our bakery. We now call it The Meltdown Bakery of Love. Aw. Adorbs.

I’m also granted another chance to try my best NOT to meltdown while baking.

And in case you were wondering … creations from The Meltdown Bakery never leave our house. When I bake something for public consumption, I bake alone.

 

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing ... Keep It Real.