I have learnt many things over my time helping out with youth work: that ‘Mafia’ is the most inexplicably popular game; that I will never understand more than half of what young people say to me; and that young people are able to injure themselves in ways you can never even imagine as you write your risk assessment. However, there is one truth which stands above all others. And it’s this:
Cake matters.
Now I’m not talking about a value chocolate Swiss roll from [insert name of your favourite supermarket here]. Don’t even get me started on those – the cardboardy sponge and fake buttercream makes me want to heave at the very thought. I’m talking about homemade cakes: light and fluffy Victoria sponges, dense and fudgy chocolate brownies, moist and tangy lemon drizzle cakes.
Recently my church has been doing some major building work, which took quite a few rooms in the building out of action. This meant that the youth group had to meet in the most cramped conditions – offices, lounges and the like. At the same time, some of the team decided to step down, and so we had to cut back on the amount we could do. I’m sure you know the kind of situation – it got quite difficult. The young people felt hard done by, that they were being unfairly treated compared to other groups in the church.
During this time, one of the few ways that I could value the group members was to make them cake. I love baking, I once applied to go on the Great British Bake-Off but they didn’t want me. Maybe my anecdote about chocolate ‘poo’ cookies was ill advised. Anyway, this love of baking suddenly came into its own. I made sure that the group had the best I could offer – better than the children and their cheap biscuits, better than the adults and their shop-bought mini-flapjacks. I made them chocolate cakes, Victoria sponges and yes, even poo cookies. There was a shaky moment when I revealed one particular chocolate cake had beetroot in, but for the most part they felt special and valued.
The building work is now finished and we have superb facilities (for which I am really grateful), but they still get cake because it’s a simple way that we can show them that we love and value them. Simple traybakes work well – chocolate or vanilla cake topped with frosting – as do biscuits or cookies.
You don’t need to be Mary Berry (I’m certainly not a well-preserved woman in her 80s with a well-developed taste for bomber jackets). In fact, you don’t even need to do it yourself – there are bound to be people in your church who love baking and would be more than happy to bake for your young people. If you were a young person in a church, what would being given homemade cake say to you?
Indeed, it doesn’t have to be baking – what else could easily be done to make young people feel special? How else can we give young people the best we can offer?
Alex Taylor is part of the Diocese of London’s children and youth team. His lemon and poppy seed drizzle cake is the stuff of legend.