“If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.” – Elon Musk.
The excitement. The anticipation. It’s killing me. I feel like a like I am a kid again waking up on Christmas morning, running down the hall to the fireplace to see what Santa brought this year. Did he get my list? Did he get me what I REALLY wanted?
I can smell the sweet aroma the all the ingredients coming together in my new masterpiece. The timer buzzes, indicating it is time to check my cake. I open the oven…disappointment consumes me just as it did my seventeen year old self gazing at the empty space surrounding the fireplace. My cake didn’t rise properly. It has a deep, ugly crater in the center just like the hole in my seventeen year old self. No amount of icing can correct this.
Don’t judge, I still believe in Santa Claus. 1989 was a crazy year, there was a lot going on in the world then and there was probably a glitch that landed me on the naughty list. But again, that is another story.
Mr Elon Musk is right, creating a company and a cake both require very specific ingredients in the right amount to be successful. I know, I have done both many times and some have not worked out so well when I didn’t follow certain rules. I would also add that the ingredients need to be introduced and incorporated in the proper order for success. Timing is important. For example, you probably do not need a customer service employee or department before you have products or a salesperson to sell them. Spending money on unneeded employees can be disastrous for a new business.
The same goes for baking. I can have all the right ingredients I need set out and ready to go but if I start just throwing them into a mixing bowl with no thought of how or when they should be incorporated I am just asking for trouble.
If you have read the rest of this series or any of my other pieces you should be able to guess that I do not like to follow rules much. That doesn’t always work out in specific types of baking. In a lot of cooking, improvisation can work quite well, except, of course, when someone asks “what did you do to make this so moist?” Uhhh, I don’t remember. I am great at throwing meals together and working with what ingredients I have available; my weakness is remembering exactly what I did so that the dish is repeatable with consistent results. This is important when you move from family dinner to restaurant production. Customers expect consistency in the products they consume.
I love creating. I love improvising. That is why I studied blues and jazz when I was playing music. Jam sessions were my favorite. We would get a group of friends and fellow musicians together and make music together on the fly. Ahh, but when I dive deep and really think about those jam sessions there were certain rules that needed to be followed in order for it all to work out. Simple, basic rules but rules nonetheless. Each instrument had to be tuned properly; the musicians had to play in the same key within the same time signature, for example. If we didn’t follow those basic rules, the music would not work out like the flat cake that never rose.
These basic rules are the fundamentals and the foundation on which to build. These have to be learned, mastered, and followed. When they are, they simply become second nature and do not create that boxed in feeling that many rules tend to do. They allow me to explore my creativity and still produce consumable pieces on my way to a masterpiece. If I didn’t practice the fundamentals much of what I create would not be satisfactory.
When I am baking I must know when to follow and when to deviate and improvise. This can be done within the same recipe once those fundamentals are truly second nature. Know when to use cold fats instead of melted or softened fats. Know when cook over high or low heat. Know when to beat them and when to fold them. It’s all about the framework. Once I have the framework for a basic type of cake I want to make, I can improvise with the flavors, shape, size, frostings etc. Because, as long as I have the batter that will bake I can bake in a variety of textures and flavors. Once all has risen I can present the final product in my own creative way. That is how to bring it all together and improvise within the constructs of a baking formula and know how to bend the rules without breaking them
The lesson for me was that I can’t always do it my way without the guidance of a recipe. The reality is that there is a lot of science behind baking and science always wins. Trust me; I have learned this the hard way. When I don’t follow the basics I often end up with radioactive chocolate…no one wants to eat that.
Talk Soon,
Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator
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