Cup Sizes and Curves fascination in baking

CUP SIZE CONFIDENCE IN BAKING

Really!

What on earth is the fascination with those cup sizes and for that matter curves anyway?

I recently attended an event near London where I got to spend time with dear friends and make some new ones.

Back at the hotel, we met up with a couple who had been together for around 15 years.

She was 30.

After a while our conversation turned to relationships.

She said that she was upset about the things her partner had been saying to her lately.

The way he no longer looked at her the same way, etc.

She said that she loved him dearly, but she also worried that she no longer knew what her partner liked or wanted.

SHARED EXPERIENCES

I asked her to think back to an activity that they both liked doing.

What brought them together in the first place.

She said she was no longer sure and started crying.

I hugged her and suggested that she looks for a way to reconnect with her partner.

I also asked her:

When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?

When last did you say I like this about myself?

She said she never did.

I suggested that she makes the time to really look at herself in the mirror again.

To identify something about herself that she liked.

Then find something else and try to build herself back up from there.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH BAKING

A lot in fact.

For the scientists, baking is about action and reaction.

Measurements, control, precision.

Whilst I agree accuracy is important, baking for me is much more about attitude and proportions.

For example, if I stood in front of you, you would not say I am skinny.

Yet, you might say that I am well-proportioned or curvy and come across as very confident.

Accepting that I was always going to be somewhat curvy has taken me more than half my lifetime.

Unless of course I wanted to be on a restricted diet for the rest of my life.

In fact, my curves as I call them, have been with me pretty much since puberty.

Albeit in those days there seemed to be a lot less of them.

My additional curves are not a result of my love of home baking and comfort food.

Sad, but true.

Instead they come from not sleeping enough, eating irregularly and not being as active as when I was younger.

Like baking the perfect bread or cake, I am working on changing this.

This is a story for another day however.

You can say it is the eternal struggle with body image we all seem to face at one point or another in our lives.

For most of my life I have been hiding my curves – the very thing that makes me distinctly me.

Therefore, I knew exactly what that young woman was talking about.

Pressure from all around to always be more.

Someone smarter, someone taller, someone thinner.

A bit like wanting straight hair when your hair is curly.

After a while you hopefully realise that trying to be someone else just is not worth it.

Thus, you can either keep fighting or accept yourself for whom you are.

This again is like baking.

As mentioned, baking is about getting the proportions right.

A balancing act if you will of base, rising agent, colour promoter, preserver, flavour enhancer and liquid.

Those who bake regularly also understand that there are external factors like humidity, height above sea level, etc. that can and do play a role.

This is where the confidence, experience and acceptance come in.

I can tell you from experience that emotions also play a role.

THAT LITTLE EXTRA INGREDIENT

That goes into every home bake that can make the bake work one week or flop spectacularly the next.

YOUR MISTAKES DO NOT DEFINE YOUR ABILITY

Your ability in baking and in life is defined by your attitude in my opinion

Are you prepared to keep trying and practice making the perfect pudding or bread or cake or whatever.

Can you develop the confidence to try new things and accept that things do not always work out the way you had planned?

PERMISSION TO TRY AND FAIL

Do you give yourself permission to try and to fail?

This brings me to the cup size conundrum.

What size is just right?

In life the answer will depend on who you talk to.

In baking it is a little bit simpler.

Although you do have differing opinions about loose fill, ample fill, spoon fill, etc.

If you have ever used just a bit too much or too little of one ingredient, you will know that your bake can go from tasty to just wrong in an instant.

If you have been following our live demonstrations on M’s Kitchen, it seems almost counterintuitive that so many recipes still talk about a cup of X or Y, whether it is flour, sugar or oil.

Yes, it can be confusing, especially if you do not know that a cup is 250 ml and a cup of flour roughly weighs around 150 grams whilst a cup of sugar is more like 240 grams.

However, I believe that as long as your proportions of dry to wet ingredients are in sync, your bake will be too.

Even if it does not look exactly the same every time.

You just need to have confidence.

Keep trying and trust in your growing ability,

M.