Sugar, what am I doing? - An Interview with Benjamina Ebuehi
Great British Bake Off finalist, author, and food stylist, Benjamina Ebuehi, shares her top tips for dealing with creative comparison, career pressure, and maintaining our all important female friendships.
When did you discover your passion for baking?
I’ve always loved food, being in the kitchen, watching my mum cook and I’ve always been someone who loves food. But, I think with baking it came about when I was like twelve or thirteen. I just had a sweet tooth and I just really love cake! And my mum got me some cookbooks and I worked my way through them. And then at Uni, I had a lot of time, I shouldn’t have… but I had a lot of time! I would just bake loads and I watched lots of baking vlogs and really got into it. I was like, okay, this is fun!
Many people know you for being a finalist in the Great British Bake Off in 2016, what made you apply for that?
Bake Off was one of my favourite shows but none of my friends really watched it and none of my family were really into it so it was just something I watched, like this is my thing. Over the years, the more I baked, the more I thought ‘oh, I could actually do some of that’ or ‘that doesn’t look too crazy, I’m sure if I had time I could do that’! And then, one year I thought maybe I could apply and downloaded the application form and saw it and was like ‘no way!’ It was super, super long with so many questions and I thought ‘there’s no way I could do that’. So, I left it and a couple of years after I just thought ‘why not’. It was a few hours before the deadline and I downloaded it and I thought the worst that will happen is they’ll say no. I didn’t tell anyone. I thought, ‘no one needs to know anyway so what’s the worst that could happen?’ So, yeah, I applied and from then on it just went and went and I was like ‘sugar, I should probably tell someone about this!’
How important was your faith during the Bake Off process?
Super, super important. Just being able to pray before each week. We were in a hotel room before filming and just having that time before to remember it wasn’t everything. I thought, ‘this is cool, this is fun but don’t get so consumed by it or think that this show is going to determine your whole worth for the rest of your life.’ So it was good in terms of giving perspective, to see it as a blessing but not let it define me. Just having my church family to pray before each week was really good to keep the nerves down and just enjoy it rather than getting so anxious and nervous. That was helpful for just enjoying the process for what it was.
What made you decide to turn your passion for food into your career and business and how have you found that journey since?
Hmm. I think Bake Off was a massive springboard. I think before that, I knew I didn’t want to be a chef in a restaurant and thought that wasn’t the path I wanted to go down. I was at Uni doing Economics and I thought ‘yeah this is stable, this will get me a good job and I’ll earn enough money and be comfortable and I’ll just cook and bake on the side for birthdays and things’. But there was still part of me that knew if I could do food all the time that’s what I would love. I just didn’t know what other careers there were outside of being a chef or a professional baker in a restaurant. And so Bake Off gave me the exposure of learning about so many more careers in food than I’d heard of, like food styling, which I do a lot of now, and knowing you can recipe write and develop recipes as a job. I’d never ever heard of that so it gave me an insight into how big the food world is. Initially, I thought I’d give myself a year in food and see if I enjoy because I might not actually want to do it or if there’s enough work in it. But, I’ve been doing it ever since! I enjoy it, I really enjoy it.
You’ve also started a business with your sister, Bonita, called The Sister Table. Can you explain what it is and why you wanted to start it?
So, The Sister Table is a series of brunch clubs that we host every other month for women, usually about thirty women every other month in different locations around London. It’s a three-course brunch. I do the food and Bonita does all the branding, website and hosting on the day. And, yeah, we started that because we just love having people round for food, we love a good dinner party and we go all out. We do the table and everything and that was just with our friends initially. Having different friends from different groups who got to know each other through those dinners was really nice. We just thought that we could do it on a bigger scale. Women in London, on the whole, want friendships and to meet new people and are actually quite lonely, whether they’ve just moved to London or just struggling to meet people in a not network-like way. The Sister Table is really chill and food is such a great way for people to get together and get to know new people. So, we gave it a go and thought we’ll just do one and see what the reception is. And it’s been really positive and we really enjoy hosting them as well.
How important do you find it having a community of women around you?
Super important. Some of the things that I’ve done, I think if I didn’t have that support group around me I wouldn’t have been brave enough to start a lot of things, which is incredibly, incredibly important. And then obviously being able to support my other friends back that are doing things that are really cool as well. But, yeah, it’s really important to have a community of women around you for prayer, for encouragement in our careers, day to day lives and relationships and they’re just so much fun. We have a good time. We always laugh and laughter is great!
What do you find is crucial in maintaining your female friendships?
I think there’s a whole stereotype of women being really difficult and emotional and that female friendships are messy. But it’s important to maintain them well. I think that’s checking in on your friends, but properly checking in, allowing time to listen to what your friends are going through in different seasons and being flexible and accommodating around that. I think we all have so much going on in our own lanes and it can be tricky to pause your stuff and actually check on your friends properly. People are busy and sometimes people don’t respond to you in time and it can be easy to take it personally but it’s really important just to be understanding of everyone’s business. Being patient is another one. Patience in friendships is key and so is good communication.
How does your faith impact your work on a day to day basis?
A lot of my work is very aesthetic and all about the looks and Instagram is a big one. As much as it is so helpful, gets me a lot of work and I’ve made a great community through Instagram, it can be so consuming. You spend time just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. And I think comparison on Instagram is so tough in whatever industry you’re in. My faith doesn’t completely eliminate those thoughts of ‘oh gosh, theirs looks so much better than mine’ or ‘I can’t do anything, I can’t bake’. But, it’s a constant reminder that you don’t need to compare yourself to others and you can be content with what God has blessed you with. That what you offer is so unique to anyone else and what you have to say is too. Faith also helps to stop work from being the number one. Especially as a millennial, your work can be your everything and it can take over as the number one in your life. So my faith and the community that comes from my church really helps to get me back on track. To meet regularly, to pray, to have accountability, to read the Bible is a massive, massive help. When you’re going through low points and you’re just tired and wondering what you’re doing with your life, faith and community is amazing at reminding you of why you believe what you believe and how good God is at getting you back on track.
“‘What I make doesn’t define my worth, it’s who made me that does.’”
How has your personal faith influenced the decisions you make as a creative?
I think it ranges. It can be things like what jobs I will take. Like, with Halloween jobs, I’ve just told my agent that I won’t take them. So, now my agent is aware of that because he knows I’m a Christian, which is a really cool thing. To others, that might seem really insignificant and they might think I should just do the job. I also think my faith influences the way that I relate to others and knowing that my work and the things I create don’t define me and that’s not where my identity is. For my other friends in the industry, it’s very much that ‘my work is me’ and that the way people view their work is how they would view themselves. The value of certain jobs they can get will very much determine their happiness and their joy. Whereas, as a Christian, it’s very much the opposite. What I make doesn’t define my worth, it’s who made me that does. That perspective is a big one.
What was it like to write your cookbook, ‘The New Way To Cake’?
Ooh, the process of that was tough! Probably the hardest part of my career to date. It was three months of constant testing and writing and a very lonely process. No one tells you that. You look on Instagram or you read blogs of people who have done cookbooks and it looks really glamorous like you just go to the coffee shop and the sun’s shining and the birds are singing. But in reality, you’re just at home in your PJs all day by yourself. The book isn’t working, you’re getting stressed and it’s just a headache after headache. But God was so so so so present because I was constantly saying ‘God, it’s only you who can get me through this’. You get to points where creatively you have nothing left, physically you have nothing left, emotionally you have nothing left and you’re just dry. You can’t think of anything and at that time, again, my accountability group was such a massive help. To have them praying for me and encouraging me with the Bible was just really filling and needed. Without that, I would have said ‘forget it, I don’t wanna do this anymore!’
Follow Benjamina on Instagram @bakedbybenji
WORDS BY
Charlotte Paradise
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Yasmin Rona
