to be fed up of this aggressive baking

[JHMJHM]

DH comes home at least once a month with yet another bakery offering from a woman he works with. I don't get when this became a thing? He defends it by saying how 'nice' it is and that she just likes 'making cakes' but I find it fucking odd and it really irks me.

To be honest I am queasy over other peoples baked goods- and I am sick of seeing her brownies seeping over my work surfaces. I don't get it at all and it boils my piss that DH cant see that it is WIERD. Why do people think they need to invest the time (and expense!) into feeding them their foul cakes? Its not like my DH is ill or thin, he is pretty robust.

Perhaps he could just bin them on the way home so that your BP levels could return to normal

I don't buy cake either fwiw but I think a PP saying they would be 'livid' is ridiculous and really does suggest that some people need to find something more important to concern themselves with

Could you apply your feminist principles to the OW in this scenario? Or rather to your DH, the helpless lamb being led to the cardiovascular slaughter by the gingerbread-house dwelling, man-pleasing witch? How could he be expected to resist her syrupy wiles?!

And the saddest thing of all is, he doesn't even have a sweet tooth . How did she get to him???

OK, I haven't RTFT, just the first reply so just going on my gut reaction.....
OP - calm down
WTF's aggressive baking?! Got mental image of someone with steam coming out of their ears manically whisking and then foisting their creations onto others.
"EAT MY CAKE, EAT IT DAMMITT!!"
Completely bizarre reaction to inoffensive cakes. Some people like baking. I sometimes bake cakes.
When I worked in an office there'd sometimes be people bringing in cakes. (I didn't though, but it did happen.)
Maybe some took some home with them. Makes sense, otherwise any leftovers would just presumably be getting chucked into the bin0

There can be really vicious personal attacks towards people for having any doubts about the cake culture thing, I've seen it on previous threads.

I agree with the feminist point too. I don't think that women shouldn't do cakes and baking per se - I believe in equality and everyone should bake, sew, fix cars or do whatever they like. I'm a raving feminist and I like baking.

When it makes me uncomfortable as a feminist is where it seems to be either a man-pleasing thing, where women demonstrate their baking skills as a way to get praise from men, sometimes competitively with each other. Or, when it's associated with weight and eating issues, where women will want others around them to eat the cake as a way of being controlling and wanting to sabotage other' attempts to eat healthily.

I accept that men can sometimes do this stuff too, and that there aren't always dubious motives like these going on. But there definitely can be.

I joined a band ages ago, maybe 15 years ago when the whole 50s housewife, vintage retro cupcake cult was in its very early stages. I thought of these people as cool indie kids who would share my feminist values (well I just assumed it). I remember feeling quite uncomfortable when after a practice, the girls brought out fancy cakes they had made, and kind of showed off and sucked up to the blokes who lapped it up. I just thought "is that really the dynamic you want to encourage? Yuck"

Good God, people are giving you a hard time for this OP. It's not a crime to not want your dh bringing home lots of unwanted food. If it has time to sit around cluttering up your kitchen he's obviously not that mad about it either. It sounds like this lady would be better off donating to a soup kitchen or similar if she just loves to bake.

I'm in an extremely senior role in a very large multinational, and I bring in my baking. As do many of my male peers. One of whom just started a French pastry course and so has been bringing in dozens of croissants daily and asking for feedback. Another very senior man cooks lunch for his team a few times a month.

If your DH doesn't have a sweet tooth why on earth is he bringing it home? If he's being weirdly polite and taking a bunch of cake he doesn't want, that's his problem, not the baking colleague's.

Ok, I can now see that there are several issues here:

• Mrs BakeOff's motives/socialisation
• The Patriarchy
• The OP's reaction: ?feels threatened ?has eating disorder ?has relationship issues (likely also due to The Patriarchy)
• What is appropriate for the work place - IMO depends entirely on the work place and its culture/climate (our weekly cake is entirely appropriate and I will defend our right to gratefully receive it with a fork - a cake fork, natch!)
• Aggressive baking: I think this could become a new Thing, or at least it should.

I shall ponder further analysis.

Agree with all your posts on this, LadyRoseate. Who could have imagined that the retro culture would take hold to such an extent?

"I MUST have that recipe"!

Poor OP has had some quite personal, ungrounded crap thrown at her from these "kind" people. I liked her comment about loving kittens but not needing a new load delivered every week. Precisely.

Oh, yes, the DH - his compliance with taking allegedly unwanted baked good home....

This could run and run and run...

Seriously OP, does he or doesn't he eat what he brings home?

do blokes ever bring in cakes?

Yes, in our place they do. If they don't bake themselves they buy something from a bakery. Similar to the women really - some like to bake, some hate it.

From CEO right down to the person doing the post run takes a turn when they feel like it. There's no competitiveness at all and lots of sharing recipes and good natured discussion.

Lots of them have high-intensity sporting hobbies - such as triathletes or sea kayaking as well as the lazy sods like me who only run 5k. Most are able to ration themselves to a reasonable portion once a week and eat very well the rest of the time with healthy home made lunches.

I'm with you in not getting the cake worship. A few years ago it was cupcakes. Didn't get that either as they're essentially big buns with an Everest of sickly buttercreamy stuff piped on top.

I really like cake. I do. But this obsession about eating it and doing heaps of baking, I can't quite work out. Unless you are a cake maker professionally then obviously you have to make shitloads of cake.

Btw - I'm 'aggressive baking' this afternoon. Just FYI.

My boss' husband once made cake for us. Well, it was for me because I'd complained that the supermarket cake I'd bought on impulse didn't even have decent crumbs let alone anything else!

His cake was delicious, btw. We had about half of it in the office, and I took the rest home. DH and dd were very happy too....

This is quite possibly one of the oddest threads I've ever seen on here. People bake in my office, not all the time but relatively regularly, even senior women. It's just a nice thing to do.

HeyHoThereYouGo you can't donate homemade food like that to food banks. Has to be in proper packaging with labels.

You asked about whether brining in cakes was unprofessional etc. I can assure you that one of our most senior managers (who happens to be a man) brings in baking every Friday. He brings in his home made bread one week, cake another, pastries another etc, Our second most manager (a woman) brings Birthday cakes for people and you could not get more professional individuals than these two.

I think what you cannot grasp in the modern office is that folk can tell the difference between professional and personal individual behaviour and can keep them separate.

Truth be told you do sound a tad weird.

No that'd really piss me off too. However I know I get jealous far too easy, he hasn't given me any reason to be jealous or mistrustful it's just my personality, I think.

But something's gone wrong when everyone is constantly having cakes at work - it's bloody bad for you, there's an obesity crisis in this country and schools and offices will appear to be serious about health strategies and so on - while ignoring the fact that everyone is drowning in cupcakes.

There's a little well known word in the English language called no. Seriously, how hard is it to say "no thanks?" I don't eat cake, so when I was in an office I'd just say "no thanks". It's not rocket science.

He sometimes eats a little. Some really pejorative comments about eating disorders here. For the record I don't have an eating disorder but if I did would that matter? Of course it would inform my opinion but would it make it more or less valid?

There are cakes all the time at my workplace. I don't have any problem in saying "no ta".

Just tell hubby to stop "enabling her" (is that mumsnetty enough?) and leave/eat the cakes at work.

Lolzing about not needing kittens being delivered every week

DH used to have a woman who'd bake and bring it in to work. Except she was of the low/no sugar brigade, and once made a cake with a blitzed up whole orange in it (peel and all) and not much sugar, it was very bitter. Now that could be aggressive baking.

I love cake though, me.

I think the question is - (sorry if it's already been answered) does your DH and kids if you have them eat the baking that's brought home?
Or is he bringing them home where they sit around and nobody eats them so they end up getting wasted?
If it's the former and they get eaten, it's obvious that he's bringing them home because he likes cake. You might not, but if he does you can hardly tell him "no, no more cake for you. Leave it at work."

Cheese refusing cake in the current cake fuelled culture - driven no doubt by the fact that everyone is hungry all the time from the constant demonisation of any other foodstuff - is even more socially unacceptable than refusing alcohol.

Op YANBU. I am a decent cake baker but I prefer my own baking to everyone else's. I only bake for my own family as an occasional treat. I would hate having a kitchen full of someone else's cast offs to dispose of.

I thought the eating disorder comment related to the baker not the recipient? I.e if you have an ED then you might eat vicariously (is that the word?) through others.

I love baking but am overweight so I give some to my DSCs then take some into the office once I have taste tested a few. That reminds me I bought some baking belts for my cake tins this week, this thread has reminded me to try them out this weekend so thanks!