I'm a fourth year medical student at Creighton University, and matched general surgery at Vanderbilt University. I've been baking my whole life, and started experimenting more seriously with cakes at the beginning of medical school.
Cakes are more forgiving than other dessert mediums, which makes them fun to experiment with. Worst case scenario, you crumble up the mistake cake and add some frosting, and voila, cake pop! When the experiment does work, it's incredibly therapeutic to follow the steps of the recipe, and go from flour and butter to a delicious sponge, then to a stacked cake, then to a beautifully decorated work of art. It's slow and sudden in the same way that long cases in the OR simultaneously take ages but are also over so quickly you can't fathom that it's been hours.
Decorating is my favorite part - it's exciting to see an image you have in your head take shape! It's one of the only art mediums where I don't feel like I need a model or example to create something beautiful, I just go where the buttercream and sprinkles lead me and see how it turns out! It's been a wonderful outlet for all the stress of school and the application process, and I've even had the honor of making cakes for some very special events for my friends and family - I'll be catering my third wedding cake this spring!
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