Baking With Olympia

It’s amazing what kids (and quarantine) will get you to do...like baking. Baking has never been my strength and I’ve just never had the time to spend on it, which, to be honest, is probably a good thing. I know that my hips definitely thank me for not baking! I also try to stay away from sugar, in general, which is a teeny bit easier if I’m not baking things that have sugar in them. But since I’ve been home the past year more than I ever have before, I’ve really leveled up my baking skills. Remember when I tried to make some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies a little while back? The list of ingredients was like Greek to me, and when I finally found the brown sugar, it was rock-solid. Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. So, going from questionable cookies to gourmet rainbow cakes wasn’t in the cards for me...or so I thought. Until quarantine life happened, and what else are you gonna do with a young child (who genuinely loves baking and food, by the way) and tons of time at home?

As with so many people around the world, it started with bread for me. Seeing everyone else in the world baking their own fresh bread sort of inspired me and motivated me to try it myself. I worked really hard on my home-made baguettes, and even though they didn’t come out great at first, I kept at it. (Do you hear that, kids? Make sure you don’t give up!) Now, I can proudly say that I know how to make my very own baguettes. Even delicious, beautiful, gluten-free ones.

From bread, I moved on to cinnamon rolls - one of the most delicious foods in the world (in my humble opinion), especially when combined with caramel apples! I worked hard on perfecting my cinnamon rolls, and getting them just right in the pan gives me a certain satisfaction. Plus, I discovered a hack for getting heavy cream into the rolls evenly (for those who don’t know, the cream adds amazing moisture to the inside of the rolls) - use a baby bottle! Genius, right? It’s definitely one of the most unexpected benefits of #momlife, but it’s seriously the perfect tool for getting the liquid into the center of the rolls and not spilling out everywhere. Unconventional and weird, I know, but you know what? When you try my perfect cinnamon rolls, I’ll be the last one laughing.

The biggest upside of baking is definitely getting to spend that time with Olympia. It was such a great activity to do together during quarantine, since we’d decide what we wanted to make together, and then just go for it. We had the time and were always in the right place! Now that she’s older, Olympia’s becoming such a great baking assistant and it’s been more and more fun to bake together. Like when she baked a chocolate Hello Kitty-shaped cake for the first time. We used a pretty straightforward recipe, and since Olivia loves experimenting with unexpected ingredient combinations (just like her mama), she added some grape to the cake. The cake turned out so well and the grape was the chef’s kiss, as they say. I was the proudest mama!

In 2020, I discovered that I really do like baking. It gets my creative juices flowing and I enjoy it in a totally different way than I do tennis. Plus, I love showing off my final creations, and sharing them with loved ones. Baking with Olympia and seeing her enjoy our creations was definitely the sweetest thing for me last year.