I’m happiest when I’m baking a cake. In fact, when I was four years old, my brother said I once walked through the living room on my tip-toes, where all three of my brothers were sitting, my empty hand flexed back, pretending to be carrying something. “I just baked a cake!” I proclaimed. “I just baked a cake!” They burst into good-natured laughter. “That’s our little butterfly,” I imagine one of them saying.

Maybe this story is an example of how as a child, I played with what I thought it meant to be a homemaker: a wife who provided sweets for her loved ones. It might also show that I felt safe enough to be authentic with my older brothers. I still do. And it definitely shows how early my obsession with cake began.

I remember the sound of the stainless steel measuring cups, how they nested together in a neat little stack. I remember how Mom taught me to make sure the flour was never pressed down into the measuring cup, and to slide a butter knife evenly over the top to level it off. I liked the scratchy sound of the sifter, the loose wooden knob of the hand crank, the baking soda and salt mixing in.

I have memories of baking with my mother as early as age six: greasing the cake rounds with a half-opened stick of butter, tapping a bit of flour along the bottom of the pan and along the sides. When I was old enough—eight or nine—I mastered the hand-mixer, could fill my own tray of paper cupcake holders—pale yellow, baby pink, sky blue—and I loved to stand on a chair, flick on the oven light, and watch the cake rise from a puddle of batter to a golden dome.

I still have to force myself to wait as the cake pans cool on wire racks on the kitchen table; I have ruined the smooth bottom of more than one cake with my impatience. I still love running the knife around the edge of each cake, inverting it onto a plate, then flipping it back onto the rack. Nothing is more satisfying than pulling the oily parchment paper from the bottom of a slightly warm cake and seeing that perfectly flat smoothness. For me, baking a cake is a ritual, and I prefer to do it when no one else is around. I even like spreading the frosting and adding the second layer when no one else is there to witness that, so the first time anyone sees the cake, it looks like it just magically appeared that way: stacked up and perfectly shaped, like a gift, all ready to be unwrapped.