Wedding Cakes and Finding Joy in the Kitchen with Freelance Baker Mackenzie Innis

This week on Not From Concentrate, Catherine Smart talks with freelance baker Mackenzie Innis about the artistry, logistics, and emotional weight behind her beautiful seasonal cakes.Mackenzie shares how she moved from fine dining pastry kitchens to building Ceres, a freelance baking business rooted in seasonality, local ingredients, florals, and deeply personal celebrations. She talks about turning clients’ food memories into wedding cakes, sourcing from New England farms, growing flowers in Somerville, and finding inspiration in bakeries, gardens, mythology, and community.Catherine and Mackenzie also talk about the less-glamorous but essential parts of creative solopreneurship: email, bookkeeping, client communication, systems, structure, and managing a busy brain while running a business.Plus, they get into Boston-area bakeries, wedding cake etiquette, edible flowers, slowing down, calming kitchen chaos, and why cake can still matter in complicated times.Not From Concentrate is distributed by PRX and produced by Catherine Smart, with audio and video production by Kevin O’Connell. Associate producer: Allie Miller.