how do I make the gap consistent in a paragraph after hitting enter?

1. Work with paragraph styles.
2. Avoid at any cost manual formatting.
3. Use only tabulators, no intend here.
4. Make no paragaph in the middst of a sentence.

Narrow the text box so that extra returns are not needed for text to break evenly. 

For words that need to stay together (Vegan Cakes) - set a No Break attribute in the Character panel

Use Space Before paragraph attribute on the second headline to add the needed space about that line.

Make sure that the return characters at the end of the lines are the same size and leading as the rest of the line.

Never use an empty paragraph to insert space. Check the Help files for Space Before and Space After.

I would suggest that you start by learning to use leading and paragraph spacing properly.