Because Creativity - A Calendar of Cakes & Cookies With Jess Barker

Photo by Andy Chilton on Unsplash

Dear Creatives, welcome to the third Because Creativity guest post, with

Jess Barker

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Jess describes herself as a multifaceted creative who can't stop writing, sewing, art-making, and following her curiosity. Jess is an editorial director, professional writer, and published fashion historian, as well as being a new mama and longtime cat lady.

Jess writes

Multifaceted

, a weekly newsletter about finding direction, delight, and fulfilment in a multifaceted creative life.

On my creative adventure to explore and celebrate creativity of all kinds, I couldn’t help being drawn to Jess’s writing. I’m sure you’ll love it too.

Baking is one of the few creative pastimes I haven’t tried to monetize in some way. That might sound crazy. But when I think about all the other activities I enjoy – writing, sewing, designing, theater costumes, art education – they’ve all seen their mix of hobby and hustle.

What is it about baking sweet treats that I love to keep just for myself?

Turns out, I don’t. Instead, I love sharing my cakes, cookies, and other confections with loved ones all throughout the year. I’ll make a cake for every occasion. A plate of cookies to say “I love you.” An age-old recipe for creating new memories.

It’s sometimes hard to talk about all the different creative projects I have going on in conversation. (At least, it was until I started a weekly newsletter about what it means to be a multifaceted creative!) But baking is an easy conversation starter. It’s a perfect point of connection when there’s not much obvious common ground.

In that spirit, allow me to take you along for a quick year-in-review from the festive flavors of winter to the surprising discoveries of spring. (Thanks for having me, Emily! If I could save you and all our readers here a slice, believe me – I would!)

Sweets throughout the seasons

I kick off the December holidays with a decadent orange chocolate cake for my brother’s birthday. Before we’ve even had our second slices, we’re tucking into melt-in-your-mouth mince pies and fondant-topped Christmas cake. Perhaps a disappearing pile of Toll House marble squares – my dad’s favorite – too.

As the new year rolls around, I’ll dream up a frivolous bake for February to beat the winter blues away. It’s not long until March when I’ll celebrate my birthday with strawberry cake. Spring and summer see me mixing up Andes Mint cookies whenever there’s an opportunity to share. 

June is a big birthday month in my family – my mom, husband (Chris), and almost-one-year-old (Lily) are all Geminis. There’s always something different in the oven: maybe a blueberry pie or a coffee-walnut cake. I’m excited to see what flavors we’ll turn to in the coming years as Lily dreams up her own ideas of what makes for the perfect celebratory confection.

In September, trips to the apple orchard mean the Apple Lady’s Apple Cake is just around the corner. It’s the loveliest, lemoniest late summer pleasure. Then, once the crisp fall weather settles in, it’s time for a massive batch of chocolate-chip pumpkin bread. I’ll freeze a few mini-loaves to make sure we have some to nibble on until Thanksgiving. I’ve recently started exploring seasonal pies and can tell it’s a slippery slope to other adventures in pastry-making.

That takes me back to December, and the kitchen calendar starts back up again!

In search of the perfect cookies

For years, I’ve been after a chocolate chip cookie recipe that ticks all the boxes. Loaded with indulgent chocolate, and BIG. The kind of cookie you’d pick up at a really good coffee shop. With perfectly crispy edges, a soft, chewy center, and a golden, fresh-baked glow. So many cookie recipes come out nice and brown on the bottom, but pale and tragic on top. It simply won’t do!

Whenever the cookie cravings hit, I tested out a slightly different recipe. Cookies are Chris’ favorite sweet treat, so I had plenty of opportunities for experimentation! I read up on baking science, fell down rabbit holes of recipe notes, and honed my understanding of ingredients like some kind of cookie sommelier. I consumed my body mass in not-quite-right cookies before I found it.

Turns out, I just needed to make a simple adaptation of another recipe I already loved. All it took was swapping the Andes Mints for Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, and scooping out quarter-cupfuls. I felt a little like the shepherd in The Alchemist – baking my way right back to where I started – but the journey was worth it.

A vintage recipe full of surprises 

My dad requested a special cake for his birthday this spring: red velvet. It’s been a family favorite for decades – always making an appearance at gatherings with the aunts, uncles, and cousins. I thought I had the recipe but couldn’t find it. My aunt sent me a snapshot of her copy in my grandmother’s handwriting.

Turns out, this is not just any red velvet cake. It’s Waldorf Cake – a recipe taken straight out of the 1930s-era Waldorf-Astoria hotel, featuring fluffy red layers and silky ermine icing.

It was by far the weirdest cake I’ve ever made. There I was, folding a fizzing bowl of baking soda and vinegar into the batter while boiling flour and milk on the stovetop for the frosting. I was convinced it wasn’t going to turn out right when the fridge-chilled flour mixture tipped out of the bowl in one gelatinous glob. 

But it did turn out exactly right, after all. The huge grin on my dad’s face proved it, as the first few bites brought him an equally big slice of sweet memories. 

This is why I bake.

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Jess, thank you so much for sharing your love of baking with us, I can feel the joy in your words and almost taste your wonderful baked creations.

You can read more of Jess’s writing on Multifaceted here:

I’m not a prolific baker, but I have had my moments and we have an inconsistent tradition of baking home made birthday cakes.

One year, I spent days attempting an ambitious rainbow cake for Katelyn’s 6th birthday, which involved baking fourteen layers of sponge in a bunt tin, piecing it all together into a number six, covering with a cream cheese icing and then painstakingly covering with a rainbow of smarties. It looked pretty good!

By the following day, the smarties had seeped into the icing and it looked a mess. The sponges were heavy and I’d used too much food colouring so they tasted odd. No one liked the cream cheese icing and my mother-in-law kindly made an emergency trip to the supermarket to buy a replacement to dish out to the myriad of 6 year olds coming over for the party.

Do you enjoy baking? Do you have any special recipes, amazing successes or disasters to share?

Come and join the While I Was Drawing community to share stories and pictures of your own baking exploits in the chat.

An Invitation

I would love you to join me on my adventure, exploring and celebrating creativity of all kinds.

If you have a creative pastime that you do for joy alone that you would like to share as guest post on While I Was Drawing, let me know here.

And if you’d like to have some fun exploring different types of creativity just for fun, join me for the next Because Creativity Live session later in July, where we’ll be playing around with air dry clay to see what we can make¹.

I am also looking for Substack posts and Notes written for the joy of all types of creativity to feature in my virtual Festival of Creativity.

If you have written about any type of artwork or creativity, from silk painting to woodcarving, modelling to crochet and knitting, marquetry, felting, pottery, painting, drawing, the art of cooking or gardening or photography, calligraphy, needlework, candle making, flower crafts.. resin art (the list goes on!) I would LOVE to hear from you.

All my wonderful Because Creativity guests will be there, including Jess…

In the Hobbit hole you can find decorative crafts of candle and soap making, flower crafts and basket weaving. The bakers and cooks delight our senses with delectable recipes from the kitchen. The gardeners work a natural magic with their green fingers, of blooms and foliage, fragrance and colour in the garden under the trees.

If, like me, you have an endless desire to fill your life with creativity, I would love you to join me on this adventure.

Bye for now,

1. This will be the rescheduled session from 5th July that I needed to cancel due to unexpected happenings earlier this week.