Mindful Baking
By: Joey Callender-Wood
Tags: Relaxation, Bread, Mindfulness, Mental Health, Baking

Around this time last year, I worked for a bakery social enterprise and wrote a short blog post about mindful baking and the link between the rising popularity of baking alongside increasing rates of people suffering from mental health difficulties. Noticing the overlapping of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK (18th — 24th May 2020) and World Baking Day (17th May) triggered some research into the therapeutic, meditative and mindful benefits of baking, particularly for relieving stress and anxiety.

The use of baking as a relaxing and stress-relieving mechanism seems more apt than ever given the current lockdown situation UK and worldwide households are finding themselves in.

Toilet roll and bleach were the first items to go (thankfully they have now made a happy return). One item that remains a stranger to the supermarket shelf however, is flour. The National Association of British and Irish Millers (NABIM) have stated they are ‘working round the clock’ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to double flour production and they still can’t keep up with demand.This is partly due to a lack of small flour packaging bags (only 4% of flour produced is for supermarkets, the rest is wholesale for bakeries). However what the recent double in demand for home baking flour in the UK shows, is that baking is treated by many as a reliable source of comfort, a way of coping with the stressful and somewhat out of control position we are in.

The UK has witnessed a resurgence in baking over the last decade. Some would argue that we have the likes of Mary Berry, Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood and the team behind the hugely popular BAFTA award-winning show The Great British Bake Off to thank for this. The number of people in the UK regularly baking has increased phenomenally over the last 7 years, with 34% of Brits baking every week in 2017. Although baking has more commonly been associated with older generations (in particular mothers and grandmothers) increasing numbers of young adults are wanting a piece of the pie, — nearly half of 25–34 year olds are baking at least once a week, and in even higher numbers in larger metropolitan areas.

In the UK we are also experiencing an increase in the number of people suffering from anxiety, depression and other mental health struggles. Mental health difficulties can affect anyone and do not discriminate. It is thought that over 25% of us will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in our life. A collection of recent reports suggests that anxiety and unhappiness among young people is growing. According to the British charity YouthNet, a third of young women and one in 10 young men suffer from panic attacks. Anxiety, depression, panic disorders are nothing new, but the increase in people reporting to suffer from them is a more recent trend.

The reasons behind this marked increase in mental health difficulties are incredibly complex and for another discussion. The focus here is how the upward trends of people suffering with mental health difficulties, and baking as a pastime are growing together. How can we connect the pursuit of baking to mental health?

One answer is mindful baking.

For some the term ‘mindfulness’ has gained the reputation of a self-help buzzword. Simply put, “Mindfulness means paying attention to yourself in the moment and not being in the past or the future, but really being there,” — Philip Muskin, psychiatry professor at Columbia University. A mindful act or practice is therefore focusing on the present. In this sense, it’s easier to understand how baking can be understood as ‘mindful’ as it ‘takes your mind out of the intellectual and connects you to your body,” Julia Ponsonby, author of ‘The Art of Mindful Baking’.

From start to finish, the act of baking guides you to focus on the present, giving your mind some rest-bite from niggling thoughts and distractions. Selecting and weighing ingredients takes precision and focus, whilst the practical and tactile actions of getting your hands dirty mixing, kneading and feeling your ingredients requires you to tune into and trust your senses. As domestic goddess Nigella Lawson concisely puts it, ‘one of the ways to interrupt anxiety is to let the other senses take over.’

By really looking, feeling, smelling and even hearing the ingredients take shape over time, you start to feel confident in making the judgement calls on your own. Soon enough, you just know when the cake is cooked, or perhaps even more importantly, the steps you need to take to rectify a mistake and save the baked good. That belief in your own knowledge and sense of control can be incredibly grounding.

Combining ingredients together in creative ways to produce dishes that are the sum of their parts can bring a momentary sense of calm and control. As John Whaite, Winner of Great British Bake Off 2012 (diagnosed with manic depression 10 years ago) said, “When I’m in the kitchen, measuring the amount of sugar, flour or butter I need for a recipe or cracking the exact number of eggs — I am in control. That’s really important as a key element of my condition is a feeling of no control.”

John is not the only Bake Off contestant who has spoken about their mental health struggles, and how baking has become a coping method. Nadiya Hussain, the hugely popular winner of GBB0 2015 has spoken publicly about a lifetime of dealing with an anxiety disorder, and recently took part in a documentary for the BBC ‘Nadiya: Anxiety and Me’ to understand the causes and hopefully the cures for her anxiety. Ruby Tandoh, 3rd place winner in 2013 has also spoken publicly and honestly about her struggles with eating disorders, depression and anxiety through the years. “I actually think that learning to bake was part of recovery for me…there’s a lot of comfort that comes from surrounding yourself with food and learning to see that it’s interesting and valuable again.”

Not only can the physical and creative acts of baking contribute towards a greater sense of well-being, the social aspect of sharing a cookie, slice of bread or doorstop wedge of cake with others can also lift spirits too. Baking can be used as a way of expressing how you feel when you might find it difficult to communicate in other more direct ways.

Whether you’re a keen baker, a complete beginner, an enthusiastic cake tester or simply looking for a new way to relax and unwind, here are three tips for mindful baking.

Prepare yourself and the ingredients: Give yourself time and space to focus on the task. Carefully read the recipe, imagine how your baked good will turn out, and think about the occasion it will bring or who you may share it with; a birthday, pudding, to be enjoyed with a cup of tea or a good book etc. Focus on your senses: Really pay attention to your ingredients as you weigh and measure them; where have they come from? How do they feel? Engage your senses during the mixing or kneading processes, focusing on touch, and allow your mind to take you down memory lane as the smells of warm bread, cookies or cakes waft from the oven. The region of the brain that juggles smells, emotions and memories are very much intertwined. This is why memories triggered by scents (as opposed to other senses) are experienced as more emotional and evocative. Enjoy engaging in the whole process, not fixating on producing a ‘perfect’ result. Creativity seems to have reached whole new competitive heights during the current Covid-19 lockdown, with examples of peoples’ homemade prints, knitted scarves and sourdough loaves (so many sourdoughs) plastered across social media. Do whatever you need to do to help you get through this time, and if your creation is not deemed worthy of insta and no amount of filters can change that, THAT’S OK. Mindful baking (and practice in general) is primarily about the journey rather than the destination. Take time to enjoy your baked good, share it with others if you wish (literally or digitally) and above all really taste it and appreciate the effort it took to get there.

It’s difficult to measure tangible ‘mindful’ benefits of baking. While it works for some, it won’t work for all. Current shortages of key baking ingredients (namely eggs and flour — see a link below for ordering flour from wholesale millers) will present certain challenges. However the principle of mindful practice can be transferred to any part of your routine; eating, running, art, writing, walking. With time and practice, mindfulness (and baking) will become a piece of cake.

Useful links

‘The Art of Mindful Baking’ a book by Julia Posonby, demonstrating how baking is a practical mediative act

If you can’t find any flour in the supermarket you can order flour directly from mills. If you’re planning on baking a lot, you can order a large wholesale sack of flour e.g. 25kg. If that’s too much for you alone, order one for you and your neighbours to share. The National Association of British and Irish Millers (NABIM) have created a map directing home bakers to retail outlets where they can buy commercial sized bags of flour

Alternatively, try baking without flour.