S1 | Episode 01 - Welcome To The Cake Therapy Podcast

Dr. Altreisha Foster welcomes listeners to her brand-new podcast - The Cake Therapy Podcast we journey into the sweet and soulful world of Cake Therapy. As someone who has navigated through personal trauma, she discovered the therapeutic magic of baking. Here you will hear stories of transformation and healing, one delightful bake at a time. You'll hear from influential figures in the baking industry who are not just great bakers but also remarkable healers, finding solace in the process of mixing, kneading, and decorating. Together, we'll explore how you too can find joy, healing, and self-discovery through the art of baking.

But Cake Therapy isn't just about personal journeys; it's about empowerment, resilience, and societal impact. Strap in as we reveal the profound work of the Cake Therapy Foundation, devoted to empowering women and girls impacted by the justice system. Hear how, during the testing times of the COVID-19 pandemic, baking became a means of survival and healing for many. We'll also be exploring other innovative and non-traditional forms of therapy like art therapy and bibliotherapy, all through the inspiring stories of those who have walked the path. Whether you're a baking enthusiast or someone seeking an unconventional healing process, this podcast is your invitation to become part of a nurturing community that bakes, heals, and empowers. So, are you ready to preheat the oven?

Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Share the episodes and let's chat in the comments.

Support the Cake Therapy Foundation:
1. Cake Therapy - Cake Therapy (thecaketherapyfoundation.org)
2 Buy Me A Coffee : The Cake Therapy Foundation (buymeacoffee.com)
3. Buy The Book: Cake Therapy: How Baking Changed My Life https://a.co/d/76dZ5T0

Follow Sugarspoon Desserts on all social media platforms @sugarspoondesserts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Cake Therapy podcast a slice of joy and healing, with your host, Dr Altricia Foster. This is a heartwarming and uplifting space that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. The conversations will be a delightful blend of inspirational stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode will take listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking. There's something here for everyone, so lock in and let's get into it.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Hi everyone, welcome to your slice of joy and healing with me, Altricia Foster. This is new territory for me. This is my first episode and I have never done anything like this before, but I really love the challenge of new things and I'm excited to get this going really. So the Cake Therapy podcast is my new baby and it's something that I wanted to do as I was writing my book. So in March of this year I published a book. It's called Cake Therapy how Baking Changed my Life.

Speaker 2: 1:25

And as I was writing that book, I thought about how baking cakes and treats and making desserts actually changed my life and transformed my life for the better. And that whole process was so cathartic for me. And I thought how lucky I was to have found baking when I did, to be able to help me process the things that I was living through and to help me to process some of the things that I had buried pretty much buried for years, I would say not for decades. I had buried some of the emotional trauma, some of the toxic behavior that lived in me. Right, I was able to process some of that stuff as I was writing the book but, interestingly enough, as I was writing the book and I was processing some of the things and working through some of the things that happened to me. I stopped, I paused and I felt really invested. I would say I felt a little bit more invested in the art of baking and how much therapy it provided me and I started talking about. I found myself talking more about my lived experiences and the traumas that I've experienced in my life and I thought you know how great it would be to find out if there are other bakers out there who actually use this format as therapy for them. But not only that. I wanted to create a space where women can be open about, you know, non-traditional means of therapy that they've used to really help them work through some things. So, be it cake therapy, art therapy, literature therapy, bibliotherapy regardless of what your individual modality is of taking on and processing the things that you've gone through throughout your life.

Speaker 2: 3:44

I would love to talk to women you know, or individuals who do that kind of stuff. Who uses that right? I have no claim to fame. To be honest, I would say, well, I do. I'd say my claim to fame is that I'm a lot his wife, I'm Candy and Kennedy's mom. So that's my claim to fame.

Speaker 2: 4:02

I just live in Minnesota and I bake and I love baking. My background is really In the sciences, I'm public health, I'm a public health professional, but I also own a premier baking company here in Minnesota. I tell women and girls all the time I say women and girls, cause I really do a lot of work with them I tell people all the time that when you know you have a talent, they should own it. I want you to think that whatever your gift is, it's the premier of it all right, and even if it's not premier now, it's going to be premier in the next couple of years. So I would say claim it right now. So, yeah, I'm claiming that I own a premier baking company in Minneapolis, minnesota, and the future of it really does excite me.

Speaker 2: 4:58

So this is a space where I fellowship and have conversations with like-minded individuals like myself who want to talk about baking or the culinary arts or anything that eases the stress that they're going through. So Cake Therapy the podcast is really intended to be heartwarming and uplifting, right? I want you all to experience the transformative power of baking therapy, as it was for me. I will be your bi-monthly host. I'm hoping that this space would be a delightful blend of inspiring stories. I want our guests to inspire you and I want them to share practical baking tips as well to you, our listeners, so that you can come on a journey of self-discovery, a journey of emotional healing, and it's going to be through the therapeutic art of baking or whatever art form you choose to participate in. So I'm really excited about that. So this podcast will I would say the format will be around having testimonials, baking stories, people's personal narratives, their individual experiences with trauma and the tools that they use to confront and combat those trauma. I'm hoping that people will send the message of resilience and overcoming and personal growth and something that they have achieved through their own personal art form or their personal therapy. This will be in-depth. We're hoping for in-depth conversations, engaging interviews, and we want people to talk about not just therapy, because we are going to be speaking with some Star Wars in the baking industry. So we want them to share some of their entrepreneurial ideas, share knowledge about their experiences in developing these great companies that they currently lead. I'm hoping that in the process, that some of them will be open to sharing with you recipes, baking techniques, a step-by-step guideline or guidance on how they develop their delicious recipes, or even a step-by-step guidance on how they themselves use their art form to work through their pain and their trauma. So I'm excited about those things.

Speaker 2: 7:47

For me, when I bake, I have to bake from the soul really, because if your order is not soothing or satisfying my soul, it's one of the toughest things for me to do. I have to feed my soul, and because baking is that for me, baking is my therapeutic source. My soul has to be healed. I remember when I started baking, I kept on seeking that pleasure, right, I kept on thinking that pleasure that my last cake gave me. So I wouldn't say it was my drug of choice, but I was seeking really the high and the pleasure that I got from baking. But not only that. Baking allowed me to kind of sit still, sit still in the moment and sit still in the space, and I was able to feed my soul through my art. And so I'm hoping that we'll be able to bake for the soul.

Speaker 2: 8:51

People share stories of how they are baking for their soul and how cake has brought them solace, joy, and how the cake has allowed them to face their challenges, the many challenges that they experience on a daily basis. And then we wanna talk about flour to empower. Flour to empower is like how is it that you moved from just baking to being this powerful leader in the cake space, or even do you even see yourself as a powerhouse in this cake space? So we wanna talk to individuals about how they move from just baking the cake to become a powerful entrepreneur in their own right in this cake industry or in this therapeutic space, how people are dealing with their traumas, et cetera. And then I want this space to be able to help to nurture the community.

Speaker 2: 9:59

One of the pillars of cake therapy is the cake therapy foundation, and the cake therapy foundation empowers women and girls who've been impacted by the justice system to lead positive lives and to become entrepreneurs in their own right. But cake therapy foundation is not the only organization that cater to women or youth in our community, and we have a lot of organizations who are doing the same work or doing the work, and it does require a collective unit to really get this job done Because, believe it or not, like trauma impacted youth in the community deserve our time and they deserve our unity, they deserve our collaboration, they deserve our partnerships. So this space is going to be that we are going to highlight initiatives that are bringing the community together, that is spreading love and that supports each other. So we are gonna be highlighting some of those activities in the Kick Therapy podcast from time to time and partner with our community leaders and other organizations that are doing this work along with the Kick Therapy Foundation. So I'm really excited about that. We'll have other therapeutic techniques. We'd have individuals who, like I mentioned, who also just not just bake, but whose focus is on the culinary arts or whose focus is on art art therapy, culinary therapy, bibliotherapy, littoral therapy and I am really excited to expose the community to other non-traditional forms of responding to trauma. The clinical aspect is there and we lift it up and we raise it and we read all those peer-to-peer to peer review journals and articles. But then there are the non-traditional forms of this work that goes on that a lot of people don't know about and I want to use this space to lift them up.

Speaker 2: 12:25

I remember doing COVID. A lot of the community, I felt them eating their way through their trauma and I, in turn, I baked a lot of cakes during COVID, mind you, and I realized that I was myself. I was baking my way out of this COVID trauma, being locked down, not being able to go around or go about my business. Of course, I'm not usually someone who goes out and socialize a lot. I'm a little, I'm a lot more homebound than most people, but you do want the privilege and the opportunity to be able to step outside and feel like you can breathe easily. But during COVID I definitely baked. I baked a lot. People ordered cakes a lot and I felt that I felt it in my bones. I felt that people were eating sweets, eating the desserts, through their trauma and this experience, and I was also baking in response to that. And other people were reading books right, other people were, people were painting, people were doing pottery, and so I want to be able to recognize and be intentional about lifting up those voices, because I know that baking is not. I'm not the only one baking through trauma. I'm not the only one who baked through my trauma, and other people are doing other forms, other art forms, you know, to go to express themselves and work through their trauma. So that is something that we want to look forward to as well, and then I'm hopeful.

Speaker 2: 14:09

I'm hopeful that as the guests enter our space they'll be able to share their own personal slice of joy and healing right. Share with us how, like I would love to hear heartwarming anecdotes from our guests. I'd love to hear what your testimonials are and how. Just what are some of the words that you, our guests, will be able, the guests, will be able to leave with you, our listeners.

Speaker 2: 14:38

I'm hoping that, as the Cake Therapy Foundation continue to do the work for women and girls, to empower women and girls, I don't wanna leave your feeling that we're just creating bakers who just bake for people and sell. Now I think that Cake Therapy does give the individual an opportunity to learn a vocational skill. But then what I want? I want Cake Therapy to be what cake was to me. I want Cake Therapy to help women and girls work through the stuff that they've worked through and they're working through, and I want them to feel empowered through this.

Speaker 2: 15:27

And as our guests enter into the Cake Therapy space, I am hoping that they too will be able to to take away the message of hope and understanding that there are form and how they've used it hard to help heal people. But then I also want girls impacted by the system to feel that and know that they're not the only one, there's hope on the horizon and that the work can be done. So there's something here for everyone. In fact, like don't worry, your bread basket will be full, there is information here for everyone. I am excited about having everyone on board and I can't wait to engage with you. I want you to always leave me comments. I'm gonna read all of them. I also want, if you know a baker that you'd like to hear from like, leave me a comment. If there's a guest that you love and you have a takeaway from that guest, leave me send me a message.

Speaker 2: 16:41

Man, I'm really excited to share this journey of mine with you and I hope that you walk. You walk this walk with me, and I look forward to this relationship. So thank you all. So much for joining me on my first episode of the Cake Therapy Podcast. Stay tuned and we'll talk soon, all right?

Speaker 1: 17:10

Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comment section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support Cake Therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the buy me a coffee link in the description or by visiting the Cake Therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the Cake Therapy Foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.