Baking red velvet cupcakes for the first time in my life was…disastrous, to say the least. I spent so much time and effort making them, pouring ingredients into a bowl like I am pouring water on seeds in the hopes that they will grow. All I wanted was perfect little red velvet cupcakes and I thought I was doing a good job until I finally pulled the tray out and they looked like the literal version of a chaotic volcano exploding in an oven.

Despite that, I enjoyed the journey of baking them. I am so used to my life revolving around chocolate based sugary treats that I never thought of expanding outside of that until Wild Reverence came along, allowing me to be more open minded in life and in the kitchen specifically.

They tasted really good in the end, slightly crunchy but still good. They were difficult to pry out of the tray to begin with, not even red and the icing was a pain to mix but the quality was at least near a 7/10. My friends and family agreed that they weren’t too bad. I decided to use my baking experience as a lesson for life.

That it doesn’t always go the way we plan it. It doesn’t always go to the plan that we create. And maybe that’s the problem, we plan too much. Worry too much. Organise too much. Maybe we should let loose and just enjoy the small moments, remember that breathing serves a purpose and not simply to breathe to work 24/7 or do chores all the time. We were made to create, to celebrate life, to have a human experience in a physical body, to eat the fruits that the trees bear for us.

Baking is not a profession of mine, therefore it allows me creative freedom, to mess up, to make mistakes and learn from them, to have fun and share my creations with my friends and family. I made mistakes during my baking of my red velvet cupcakes and I actually learnt from them.

Because I tried again, a couple of days later and they turned out perfectly. I wondered why I wasn’t able to have that result the first time around. Then I remembered that’s the point. In order to learn and get better at something, you have to trip and fall along the way and make the mistakes you need to make in order to grow and learn. That’s all it is.

I am not ashamed of my first batch of cupcakes. Because it shows that I tried something new despite my uncertainties of it. It represents that you shouldn’t let fear or doubt hold you back from following your dreams or trying something new outside of your comfort zone.

Adding sprinkles to my second batch was also an idea I only came up with after the first batch. I totally forgot that I had them. But, after round one, I knew all the ways to improve my skills for the next time I baked them. I am glad that my cupcakes weren’t perfect the first time, because hopefully I can inspire others to feel better about their mess ups. And to be honest, my second batch is not totally perfect either. They are not even red! I tried to make them red, but it didn’t work out again, they came out the same colour as the first batch. So I need to work on that. But that’s how most things go.

I hope you enjoy my recipe, which I used and actually followed for my second batch. Remember, it’s okay to make mistakes and mess up sometimes. After all, we are just human.