Malta, 2020.
It all started during the first lockdown. We were living in a small apartment that had become much smaller; most of our stuff was boxed up and ready to be shipped to England as we prepared to move countries for the second time in three years. The Maltese heat was relentless, as usual, and the boxes made it hard to move around freely.
My husband was already in the UK, and living in an area that was at high risk of infection. I couldn’t sleep with worry, and when I did, I’d wake up in a panic.
I tried to write – the one activity that always manages to restore my sanity – but my brain was on strike and my imagination had dried up.
I was alone, in a tiny apartment, with two kids who were missing their dad and grandparents. While nanna and nannu lived in the apartment below us, we couldn’t visit them anymore.
I felt like I was losing my mind. Have you ever experienced so much anxiety, that you are overwhelmed by things you have to do, but paralysed because you don’t know where to start?
I wanted to let the fog swallow me up. I wanted to hide under the blankets and cry. But, I had kids to look after.
And those kids loved baking.
With the little strength I had left, I got the flour, sugar, eggs, and the rest of the ingredients together, called the kids, and watched their faces light up with delight as we baked cupcakes together.
And, you know what? Seeing my kids happy made me happy. I was less exhausted. The fog had cleared slightly, and my writer’s block was lifted.
That day, ‘Ellie and the Cupcakes’ was born. As I wrote the story, I visualised Ellie as a redhead with short pigtails and a lime green dress. I know that vision is nothing like the Ellie we all know and love, but that’s another story for another day.
To this day, my 10-year-old son will bake when he comes home from school. He finds it therapeutic, and it gives him the opportunity to experiment with different ingredients. He tends to do his own thing and add his own ingredients. I don’t get involved with the baking process (just with the eating!). Occasionally, though, he likes to follow a recipe. And, he almost always opts for The Sugarcraft Contessa’s own, which is found in the book itself.
