Tezza x The Caker Want You to Get Creative While Baking

Who doesn’t love a baked treat, still warm from the oven? The culinary arts have always been wellness adjacent, from the nourishing ingredients you select for health to the opportunity for mindfulness its preparation provides. But Tezza Barton, founder, and CEO of Tezza App reminds us of its other merits. For one, making your bakes beautiful can be a fun way to infuse creativity into the kitchen. She also finds baking an ideal time to connect with friends and loved ones. “I love baking! I find baking to be a great gateway to good times with good people,” Barton tells rē•spin. “I love to have my friends over to hang in my kitchen, snacking on whatever we’ve cooked up, listening to good tunes, candles lit, French music on, just being in the same space, sharing these moments. It’s a perfect way to decompress from the workweek and just come together to make something delicious.”

The gist of Barton’s take on wellness comes down to viewing creativity as a vessel for wellness and your time in the kitchen as one of its many channels. This central role that the kitchen can play is why Barton, a creative to the core and a fan of all things aesthetic, chose to collaborate with Jordan Rondel of The Caker in her most recent brand collaboration. Known for creating recipes using meticulously-sourced and vegan-sensitive ingredients, presented in fashion-forward style, their recently launched kit — Tezza x The Caker Coconut Raspberry Lime Leaf Cake Kit — comes with everything you need to create a scrumptious treat that looks just as good as it tastes. “Having an eye for photography, I like to make things aesthetically pleasing even if it’s just going straight into my mouth,” Barton explains. “It’s more fun to eat something pretty, and it can inspire people to get up and create.” After all, Barton’s professional start was as a photographer; through her app, she has been lending her artistic eye to creative professionals worldwide. Thus the kit comes with the recipe card, cake mix, decorations… and it’s very own preset so that you can share your work in your own styled photos after.

Creativity is the core of Barton’s brand motto; it appears that living a life in which she can channel her creativity freely is what allows her to thrive. “My wellness motto really stems from our brand motto, The Art of Life. I am fueled by creativity; it’s what centers me,” Barton says. “I often find people overthink what art or creativity is, assuming they aren’t a part of the conversation. My biggest goal with Tezza is to break down the walls of what being an artist is and help everyone discover their inner artist.”

Barton is adamant that even the way you live your life is your art — from the way you plan your time to the way you interact with friends to the way you view the world. “My way of self-care starts by stimulating the things that inspire me — long walks in the morning in different neighborhoods to open my eyes to new things, coming up with recipes in the kitchen, styling a new outfit, writing a letter, going vintage shopping, and the list goes on and on.” 

Her open-minded, welcoming attitude to creativity — as such a joie de vivre — is what she wants to share with others, uplifting other creatives in the process. This is why her app seeks to provide creatives with the tools they need to present their work beautifully and effortlessly, leaving them with more time for their crafts and doing what they love. Using her artistic eye and her husband’s skills as a programmer, she decided to help others achieve the aesthetics they sought with her app. Each collaboration thus supports other creatives in the ways that they channel their creativity — paying it forward, in a way, while celebrating the force in her life that is synonymous with wellness.

As for the collaboration itself, the aesthetic-forward brands fit together seamlessly. “We fell in love with how each of Jordan’s cakes is their own works of art and that she has such a strong, creative vision,” Barton says of this unique, modern medley of a cake and a preset. “I have always been inspired by the art of food — how beautiful a dish can look, the creativity that goes into presentation and ingredients, so when we discovered The Caker and saw her not only bringing art to the delicious cakes she makes but also that she has the most amazing fashion sense and photography, it felt like the perfect blend of everything we stand for as a brand.”

Because Barton is pregnant, she was also drawn to the ingredient choices Rondel opts for — in her recipe books and on her website, you can find a number of options that are gluten-free and/or vegan-friendly. “We were definitely inspired by The caker’s ingredient choices in all of her cakes and recipes. I wanted to be sure we were working with a company who stands for using real ingredients and with vegan sensitivities,” Barton adds. They decided to go with the Coconut Raspberry Lime Leaf flavor, which was a hit in New Zealand — where The Caker originates — in bringing the brand Stateside.

Then, after you make the cake, you’ll have everything you need to make it look picture-perfect — including the Tezza app’s preset. “The preset, called CAKE, of course, is meant to make your photos feel yummy,” she says. “I tried to bring the levity and softness of a bite of cake to how the preset will make your photos and videos look.” Until you get a chance to pick up the kit, you can try one of The Caker’s recipes at home. 

Serves 12

Ingredients:

• Three large ripe bananas, mashed
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ½ cup almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp light olive oil
• 1 tsp of salt
• 3.5 oz ground almonds
• Two 0z cocoa powder
• 2.5 oz buckwheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda

Method of Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 338 degrees Fahrenheit and line a loaf pan with baking paper
2. Blend together the bananas, maple syrup, almond milk, vanilla, and olive oil in a food processor until smooth.
3. Pour the wet mixture into the bowl of an electric stand mixer and gradually add in the salt, ground almonds, cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and soda. Mix until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
4. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife can be removed clean. Allow the loaf to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before putting it on the cooling rack.
5. Once cool, place on a board and cut into thick slices. Serve as desired — she recommends yogurt, jam, nut butter, fresh banana, or alone.
6. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.