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.

One of my managers at work LOVES a specific cake I make. I have given his wife the recipe however she has 2 young children so it really doesn't happen often she makes cake.

I however find it relaxing and enjoyable to bake. So sometimes if I make that cake I make an extra and take it with me into work. It gets greeted with glee and he takes it home. I know his wife also likes said cake and eats it.

I am not particularly friendly with this manager (I am more so with a few of the others) He and I get on fine can share a joke here and there but thats pretty much it. I am about 20 years older than him and I am not in any way " interested" in him.

Its just something I do to be nice.

I actually think it is more weird to have a issue with cake. I would also wonder if you saying you don't like cake at all your dh may have said this to his work colleague and made a comment on that he did like them. So if she bakes every week like some people do, then I can completely see why she would bring in some for him.

'I have heard what everyone is saying but you're all wrong and I am not being unreasonable'
Okay.

Otoh I had a friend who absolutely refused to eat cakes of a well-known commercial brand because he had worked for them once. He felt safer with home-made.

Wow - OP you need to seriously calm down and get some perspective.

Some people really enjoy baking - and unlike some hobbies it's productive. I personally don't see the point in sitting on a river bank all day hoping to catch a fish which you throw straight back in the river, but I don't get the rage with people who choose to do that all weekend.

Brownies don't seep over surfaces. Getting queasy is plain odd. You're like the people who screech about "THE GERMS" and think they're going to keel over if they eat a scone which hasn't been made in a factory.

Disclaimer- no issues about food or my DH relationship with Mrs Bake Off and yes I have heard of Mary Berry.

I once managed someone who was not good at their job. They ingratiated themselves with me and everyone else affected by their incompetence by bringing in cakes. It was a manipulative and largely successful tactic. It is very hard to refuse a home baked cake. I'm not suggesting that is the case here but baking cakes is not always 'just a nice thing'.

You can be as cake-averse as you like, but your DH has admitted that he likes it. That's what upsets you, I think. He's getting something elsewhere that you can't give him.
But - listen carefully - it's only cake.
That's all it is. If you let it grow into some massive other thing, well, then it might become some masive other thing. If you say to him, darling DH, I'm so glad you get your cake-needs met, because I can't do the whole cake thing, but it makes me happy that you can still have lovely cake, you'll be fine. If, however, you go batshit on him and say, do not bring any more cakes into the house over my dead body, you might find that he starts to look at you like and then it might turn into . Just because you don't like cake, why are you wanting to deprive him? That's the bit that's controlling.

Well I'll join the few dissenting voices and say I don't like it either, and I do think it can be aggressive.

There have been arguments about this on MN before and if you say you think there's anything wrong with this overwhelming office cake culture/national obsession with baking thing, you are shouted down as a joyless twat.

Of COURSE cake is nice, and baking can be very therapeutic and enjoyable - I relate to both of those things. 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.

And often people do use baking competitively and aggressively. They put pressure on people to eat their cakes or take them home and will be put out if they don't. My mum is very aggressive with cake - you WILL have one of her (not very nice) homemade cakes for EVERY occasion, and if you're not keen she will bully you and go on about it until you give in.

All this doesn't mean I'm a killjoy and don't like cakes and baking - I do. But I would also be pissed off if a female colleague was sending cakes home all the time with my DH/DP.

The girlfriend of a friend of exP's once made him a MASSIVE cake for his birthday and came round with it to feed to him and his mates. "Kind", "nice" and "creative", yes. But actually all about her wanting to be the centre of attention and be a man-pleaser. I was really upset because it outshone the cake that toddler DS and I had made and he had clumsily and lovingly decorated. But of course everyone was praising her for her wonderful cake and I had to bite my tongue and reassure DS.

Down with aggressive cake bah humbug etc.

Also, no issue about germs at all and if you could see my kitchen you would concur. But yes, I don't relish the thought of chowing down on these cakes. Fed up of them. There are surely people more in need than me and DH.

When DH was in teaching some of the staff organised a 'cake wednesday' every other week whereby they took it in turns to bring in a cake for the whole group.
I think it got quite competitive, especially asmong the men, who took great pride in their home-made offerings while being very sniffy if anyone brought in shop-bought goods.
Especially if it was a woman, it seemed. (Who probably had more than enough to do at home and didn't feel like baking on a Tuesday night after cooking dinner for the family anyway. )
But occasionally I got some (very yummy) leftovers.

In defence of OP I have have had two or three colleagues over (many) years, and not all at the same time, who could have reasonably described as aggressive feeders. All rake thin, and prone to preening themselves about how diligent they were about going to the gym. But bringing oddles of salaries into the office to be available to others, on more or lass a daily basis. I sat closest to the tea point where things were left and hated having to work alongside constant temptation. None ever ate anything they brought in.

I am pretty certain that a least a couple had some form of eating disorder, one talked about food constantly, another would push food round a plate at office lunches but never actually eat anything, whilst the third spent hours in the house in the gym each day and still managed to find time to clean her house daily from top to bottom. (Her desk, bizarrely was a complete tip).

And yes I was weak and ate the food. But probably not wrong to feel they were being aggressive. (But like everyone else just smiled and said Thank You.)

Um Im not depriving him and Im not controlling. Just dont want anymore cake. My house is a tip enough as it is without a regular dose of sticky tupperware and ever hardening fruit scones perched on my surfaces.

But OP, if it's only once a month/every few weeks and your dh likes it, then what business is it of yours? How does it affect you? I can't imagine being that invested in something given to my dh or my (almost adult) children. Particularly as it happens so relatively rarely.

I'm with you @JHMJHM

Bringing cakes and sweets into the office to eat and share at the office is all nice and normal.

Gifting people homemade cakes to take home every couple of weeks is weird. I'd be binning them.

I am sick of seeing her brownies seeping over my work surfaces

it's completely odd for someone to do this am with op. bonkers

Are you sure this woman is giving him cakes to bring home or is HE taking the cakes home? That is important because then you have no right to be annoyed with the poor woman who just likes baking!

Oh Hi Lady-thanks

cory- because it is my house and I dont want loads of cake in it all the time.

YANBU. Tubs of baking every two weeks from someone you don't even know is a bit much. I'd tell your DH to enjoy the cakes with his coffee at work/share them with colleagues and stop bringing them home all the time.

I'd want to be choosing/baking/buying treats for myself and the kids most of the time. My Mum regularly bakes for them, that's lovely from Granny but a bit different to a woman at Dad's work they've never met. A special occasion like Christmas I would accept it as a nice gesture.

For context - I bake and bring cakes into work - I do not 'gift' them to anyone but at the end of the day if there are leftovers, colleagues will ask if they can take them home. Maybe that's what your husband is doing!

I'm kind of on the fence with this.

I had a colleague who didn't make cakes but obsessively bought them, always expensive, M&S type ones, every team meeting, didn't have any herself but watched everyone exclaim over them, scoff them. Eventually, I realised she had an eating disorder. Wanting to feed others can be part of that (although usually isn't, I'm sure!)

Every now and again this can be a nice thing. We also have lots of events though and there is spare food/cake left for them.

We have men who cook stuff, but they tend not to do cake- speciality breads for an event, or sweets.

Basically you have to stop eating all available cake unless you want to blow up like a balloon.

And agree with needmoresleep that cake pushing can sometimes be connected with eating disorders and control issues. I knew someone like this too, at uni. Wouldn't eat a thing herself but was always baking and forcing it on people. She was ill and that's awful, and I was sorry for her, but it's not true that baking for people is always simply about being nice.

I love baking, the challenge of making a perfect cake but no one in my house is a big cake eater, we're all a bit of a one slice is enough thanks.
So my friends, neighbours and when I worked in an office, my colleagues often got the extra. I've often even had requests for particular cakes.

As long as it's not a just cooking for your DH thing, I think you are over-reacting just tell DH to lay off on bringing so much home, if you've had enough.

I'm seriously hoping that your name doesn't begin with E...

I LOVE baking and I'm bloody good at it. I have a very stressful life and it is the one thing I regularly do that is just for me. I also have no will power so I can't keep my baking in the house because I'd eat it.

So I bake for work. This week it was brownies (the non-seeping kind) and as I work predominantly with two groups I took a box in for each. DD had one at home, as did DH and I had one at work. Portion control sorted and a lot of happy people.

I do own a cat, but I put it outside before I bake, and I re-clean my kitchen just in case. I have OCD and my kitchen is always cleaned again before I cook/bake anything.

I bake around once a month, I also make birthday cakes for colleagues, instead of putting into the collection. I get asked if I'm doing them. I have also been asked by colleagues to make cakes for their children. As for shop bought cakes... I know exactly what is in mine - butter, sugar, eggs and flour. No preservatives, no trans fats, no palm oil, no chemicals, no E numbers. I know which is healthier.

One of my colleagues sometimes takes his cake home, and I usually tell him to take one for his DW too if he wants to. I'd be a bit if she felt like you do. Eat it, or don't - it was your dh who CHOSE to bring it home. You may not like it, but he clearly does, and actually that is allowed.

Oh and FWIW - many of the people I work with, including Mr Take Home, are friends, not just colleagues. I spend more time with them than my family. I bake for friends.

Blokes definitely bring in cake for our bake sales. And sausages rolls. And quiche. And ham and egg pie.

I really, really want a sausage roll now.