What do you do when you’re stressed out?

Some people go for a run. A friend of mine does yoga. My husband shuts himself out from the world and takes long baths.

I scrub toilets with a toothbrush. And bake.

It usually has to follow this order: I’ll need to vent my frustrations so whenever I feel stressed, I’ll typically be found scrubbing the tiles on bathroom walls and floors with an old toothbrush. I see grime, I begin cleaning with sheer brute force. Then I’ll feel much better. To complete the de-stressing, I ransack the larder to see what I have and bake something.
Anything. There’s something calming about throwing butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a mixer and seeing batter turn into something pretty and yummy. It takes the edge off the stress, at least for me.

Now, with three kids, it’s much harder to perform this ritual. I’ve been so wound up lately. And it’s been so hard to move on without scrubbing the toilet and baking a cake.

So with the Youth Day holiday being a good break for me, I did what I needed to. I scrubbed. And I baked a cheesecake.

The cream cheese was left to soften at room temperature for three hours. The preparation took one hour and the baking took another. Then I left the cake in the oven to cool for another six; after which, the cake was refrigerated overnight. The recipe I used was easy to follow and the result was a mouth-watering slice of dessert everyday for the next one week.

Now to burn off the calories. Perhaps I could do with more toilet scrubbing.