Scent Notes: Dark cherries, bittersweet almonds, hot sugar, buttery cookie dough, a warm glass of milk.

For the first time in years, Brenda was excited about Christmas. Not for the usual reasons, however, though she was so excited she couldn’t sleep: She was finally entering her office-wide bake-off. 

Brenda was a natural cook. She was not a natural baker. The exact measuring of ingredients was counter to her instincts. She was far more comfortable with a pinch of this, a sprinkle of that, triple the amount of garlic, and knowing easy things to substitute to consider people’s preferences or allergies. But the logic of cooking didn’t apply to baking. Baking required exactness, precision, and scientific principles. There had been many a time when she added too much or too little baking soda or baking powder (or mixed them up entirely) and her cake turned into a flat disc of rubber, or overflowed and burnt the bottom of her oven. She often just bought desserts, or relied on friends to make them for dinner parties. “Know your strengths,” she’d say when people asked her why she didn’t bake.... Click here to read the rest of the story!