Cake-Baking 101: How To Win Souls

Alysen Merrill

Published:

December 18, 2009

Last updated:

3 Top Tips for Baking:

1. Stock Up On Ingredients

Planning ahead is crucial. How many times have good intentions turned into half-hearted affairs? To make the perfect treat you need to have the right ingredients. Remember: right ingredients can be debatable. Applesauce can be used in place of butter or oil, and a sugar-substitute can be used in place of sugar. Knowing your substitute options are important–especially when your baking for many different types of people you.

2. Know For Whom You Are Baking

Its not rocket science. Most individuals could tell you their favourite type of cake or cookie. Use that knowledge to create the best goodie for that individual. If baking for diabetics, use your best no-sugar added recipe. If you have a group of hungry students at your doorstep, be armed with your best brownies! Your success as an “ultimate baker” will come with knowing what goodies will be a hit with each individual or hungry group.

3. Make the Time

I cannot tell you how many recipes I have botched because I have rushed the baking process! Baking sensations usually take time. Allow for it! Be creative about how you bake; intersperse the baking process in between other important day to day activities. A great tray of cookies can easily bake during a 10 minute shower. Likewise–a marvelous cake can cool during the day and be iced at night.

Not A Cake-Baker? No Desire To Be The Next Betty Crocker?

Rest assured I am not talking about simply cake-baking here. I am talking about so much more.

Within two weeks of moving to England in 2005, I realized as I walked the local streets of Leicester that I did not love the place. To be honest, I was already sick of the rain and dreariness. I was in a foreign country, and I had never done well with geography, history, or languages. I felt completely out of my comfort zone.

As I contemplated my situation, I quickly realized there was one thing I did feel confident about: I was capable of loving people and baking. So it began, loving people and baking cakes. I would bake cakes for baby showers, cookies for the kids clubs, brownies for the young couple who stopped by every week. The list was endless.

For me, deciding to do what I knew well, loving people and baking, seemed to go hand in hand. I lived in a lower-class area and people did not bake much. I had always enjoyed baking and it seemed like one of the easiest and best ways at the time to share and bless others in ways which were extra special. Many of the people I encountered simply were not used to people making a fuss over them. For a birthday party or a meeting home-made cakes and goodies were what extravagance looked like. Whether it be a cake for a celebration or cookies for a meeting, all were ways to let people know I valued them enough to spend time and money.

I now live in an area that is much more middle-class. Cake-baking and cookie-making is not such a rarity here. The same problem that first caused me to start the cake-baking extravaganza still exists though. People need to be loved and valued.

What I have realized is that although I love to bake and share sweet things, what I love even more is finding ways to love and give value to individuals. Whether it is through writing a little note to someone, going out of my way to give someone a hug, remembering a name and a story, or simply baking a cake: people need to be loved and valued. Being able to love and give value to an individual is something that can be done in any country and culture or any age group.

Ways To Love And Attach Value:

1. Find Ways to Give Of Yourself

We give to those we deem valuable. Decide to value every person you meet and give of yourself. It needs to be what you are capable of giving (the ingredients you have). You might be really good at giving encouragement: give it readily! You might be great at service: find ways to serve the individuals around you. Listening to others might come easy for you: listen well. Many do not. Your smile might be infectious: smile and allow people to see you care. If you can knit really well, knit your heart out and pass on gifts! If, like me, you can bake a cake, pass on your goodies!

2. Don’t Be Afraid To Give Time

Time is valuable, and we all know it. Decide to give your time. It might be time to do something for an individual: run errands for someone, be a taxi service, clean someone’s house, bake a cake. Or just spend time with someone. People understand the value of time and will note it. One of the saddest things someone has said to me in my last few years in ministry: they knew how busy I was and did not want to take my time. That was sad because that individual was high on my list of wanting to love and value well.

3. Realize What the Need Is

If an individual owns their own bakery, but cannot make it to a community event because they have no transportation, they probably do not need me to bake a cake for them. They need my help with transportation. People in our midst who are lonely or without community do not just need our prayers. They need the help a community can provide. Find ways to connect them. If someone says they do not want to bother you, but you can see they have made a special trip to stop in and say “hi,” then the individual probably needs a listening ear. Be ready to respond to the need.

4. Whatever You Do, Believe All People Are Valuable

If you do not see the person as valuable, then you need to be convinced that God does. It is amazing when we strive to see people as God sees them. Compassion and love can somehow flow from us! People are not valuable just because we like them or they might be great to hang with. They are valuable because God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for them, to be in relationship with them. People have value because God sees them as valuable.