The Power of Baking with Mindful Intent

Do you cook for a small household? Just you or you and the other half? I do. And have for most of my life. I’ve always loved cooking and was active in the kitchen from a young age as my mother hated cooking and never baked. Despite this, my parents entertained a lot. This gave me the chance to be the cook when it came to preparing food for their many social events. Over the years I have created dozens of reasons to cook up a storm for friends and family - any excuse to try new and different recipes. I delighted in creating dazzling menus and setting beautiful tables. I had, by then, collected elegant dinner sets with all the trimmings to serve twelve with everything matching. I loved it. My friends and family did too. In 2011 my world changed in an unexpected way. I become a Thermomix consultant. But that was not the change that rocked me. My consultant training required me to practise making the demonstration dishes until I knew them by heart, which took some considerable time. Each dish served six people, so every time I practised a dish at home I would have to eat the leftovers for the next five days. I began to think that there had to be recipes for small households. However, extensive searching found very few. Was I the only person who cooked just for myself? The answer to that question came as a great shock. In my work at that time I happened across a report, from the recent census, on Australian household sizes. Nearly 60% of all households were either one or two-person households; with one-person households making up almost a quarter of all Australian households. I was not alone! Yet most cookbooks catered for four, six or eight people. I felt like I was part of a ‘hidden majority’. This realisation of a ‘hidden majority’ led me to a lot of reflection on the challenges of cooking for small households. I realised that to prevent food waste, over eating and a freezer full of five or more portions of the dinner I’d just had, I needed to do things differently. The first step was to do the numbers and create recipes sized just for me. This led to my blog, www.cookingjust4me.com, and then working with Thermomix to create the highly successful Cooking for Me and You cookbook of recipes for one and two, focused on everyday meals. My attention then turned to baking. I often wanted a little something to go with my cuppa but I didn’t bake as there was just me and I felt, at that time, that it wasn't worth the effort. Besides, cake recipes usually fed eight to twelve people. If I was to treat myself I needed to find recipes that made cakes just4Me. Again, my searching drew a blank. Always one for a challenge, I started a crusade to find the perfect cake to go with a cuppa, sized just4Me - one that was easy to make, even for a non-baker. Three years of reading, baking, testing recipes, talking to cake bakers, and attending baking classes resulted in a great collection of cakes sized just4Me plus a little for you. Having learned an enormous amount about baking for small households - and creating a considerable collection of great cake recipes - my friends wanted me to share my knowledge. This led to the creation of the www.just4meBakeClub.com, an online cooking school. During the journey of creating this online business I began to value my quiet moments of me-time. Sitting in the garden with a cuppa and a slice of my homemade cake I realised that these times, where I was just ‘in the moment’, became a powerful recharge for me, giving me the energy and resilience to enjoy the creative process of building an online business myself. I realised I needed to practise self-care because if I didn’t look after me, who would? The more I chose to bake with this in-the-moment focus the more joy I took from what I did and the more I accomplished. Mindfulness was helping me to achieve my vision of an online baking school for those who cook for themselves. With such a range of cake recipes I was often asked which was my favourite? The answer varied, depending on how I felt at the time. If I needed me-time because I was feeling overwhelmed I knew my favourite was Lemon and Almond Cake from Santiago. If I needed a recharge it was Half Orange Butter Cake. In my head I had this little matrix of cakes and feelings that helped me pick how I was going to care for myself in my me-time. This book is a hardcopy of that mental list. My niece, Susan, was part of my recipe-testing team, and in addition to giving great feedback on the constant stream of cake recipes I sent her, listened with understanding to my stories of why this or that cake was important to me emotionally. In her professional life Susan is a psychologist, and she generously supported me in my project of passion, encouraging me to champion the importance of self-care. And that is how we came to create this book. My mission is to encourage small households to value themselves by taking me-time with a little home baked treat, and Susan supports each recipe with a mindfulness exercise that can easily be practiced in everyday situations. This book is my list of cakes and feelings. It can be used simply as a recipe book, full of beautiful cakes to enjoy just 4You, or as a mindfulness guide for discovering how easy it is to enrich your daily routine with the power of being in the moment. Combine the two, and discover how baking with mindful intent can truly enrich your me-time. Enjoy, because you are worth the effort!