Baking newbie

When it comes time to making a meal, I can whip one up rather quickly from whatever I have on hand, and the end result is almost always quite tasty. When it comes to baking, however, I will wander around and stall just to get out from baking. The weird thing is that I love browsing through cookbooks and watch cooking shows about baking. I even own 2 baking pans (rectangular and round), 2 muffin tins (small and regular sized), one cookie sheet (that I have used for everything except baking cookies), one cooling rack, one heart-shaped baking tin and one Bundt cake tin. The Bundt tin I used only once and not for baking a Bundt cake, but for making ice garlands for punch bowls (for my wedding reception). Yes, I can be pretty creative when it comes down to it. I just have this baking phobia. (I wonder if there is an actual word for it.) Anyway, over Valentine's Day weekend (in Spanish, "El Dia del Amor y la Amistad") I decided to bake a cake in the shape of a heart. This is what it looked like: (the candies are M&Ms)


It was brought over to a friend's house as dessert. I got rave reviews and everything. "It's so pretty! ... Mmm, delicious! ... It's so moist and not too sweet..." You would think it would have made me feel great and more confident about baking. Actually, I was feeling kind of uncomfortable about all the compliments, until one dinner guest had the nerve to ask if it was baked from scratch. Well, I finally exhaled and confessed to it being straight out of a Betty Crocker box. I quickly added though that the pale pink buttercream frosting was made from scratch. The frosting was indeed delicious, I have to say. To my relief, someone exclaimed, "Hey, that's the best part!" (Thanks, Emily.)

Oh well, it's a start. Here's hoping I can overcome my fear of baking and whip out a real cake from scratch.