Baked

Matt and Renato really, really like dessert. Perhaps, a little too much. They tend to think of themselves as dessert archeologists - digging and researching and eating their way through the regional desserts of America. They spend a disproportionate amount of their vacation time in bakeries, chocolate shops, coffee houses and used book stores and they spend almost all of their discretionary income on cake and coffee and cookies and wine. Prior to pursuing their professional dreams of baking and caffeine, they were baking and culinary hobbyists. Renato watched and learned from his mother and Matt was guided by his grandmother, a few night classes, and his mom's deep love of a good cake mix.Matt and Renato spent much of their youth (or what was left of it) in the world of advertising. Matt, a producer, spent his days in a lifeless cubicle stuffed with spreadsheets and post-its, while Renato spent his time in the more rarefied field of graphic design (i.e. making things look beautiful so people would buy them). Their lives overlapped at a glitzy ad agency (where they labored on non-glitzy accounts) and the germ of the idea that would become Baked formed. They still own and operate the bakery (with a lot of help) in addition to writing best-selling cookbooks creating cool new products and building empires (or something like that). Baked has been featured on Unique Sweets, Best Thing I Ever Ate and Throwdown with Bobby Flay.