Spring into Fun!

I have never been good at making cakes.  I made plenty of them years ago but they never turned out to become what I had hoped.  Cakes can be finicky with their layers.  The vision I have in my head is hard to execute because the layers bake uneven, or worse, when flipping a layer out of the pan, it pulls out with a big delicious clump stuck to the center of the pan.   Icing should be the cure all.  Yet, even with the cover up, I had a hard time smoothing the edges to my satisfaction.  Cakes were a disappointment.  When building the business, I used to quip that cookies would become the new cake since I knew how to handle cookies.   

However, I’ve hired some real talent in our kitchen and I watched how Elizabeth trained people in our space to handle cakes.    I now have a newfound affection for the cake.  It turns out, I was bad at making cakes because I believed I was bad at making cakes.  The mystery in everything we approach in life is in how you handle it.  You have to be bold and intentional.  My cakes fall apart because I’m acting gingerly and reserved as if I’m expecting to fail.  I allow it to crumble because I’m entirely indecisive removing it from a pan.  Alternatively, I’ve watched the experts in the kitchen strong arm a cake pan and will the three tier cake into submission.  They force it to become the vision they have. If a cake takes a turn for the worse, an expert can whip it back into place before I can blink.  

Sugar can cover a lot of mistakes and icing is one big miracle cure for the cake that needs a little extra attention.  That’s the moment I realized it’s not cake that’s complicated.  It’s me.  One of the new expressions I shared with our leadership team comes from the book by Charlie Mackesy and it seems fitting:  If at first you don’t succeed, have some cake.  I see, does it work? Every time. 

So come eat your feelings with us any day of the week (except Sunday) and eat lots of cake!

-Lauren Young, Founder of Sweet LaLa’s