Hi, I'm Angela.

I'm the recipe developer and baker behind Obsessed Cakes, although baking was never part of my original plan.

You may also know me as @obsessedwithcashews on Instagram and TikTok.

I grew up in Wisconsin, and some of my favorite childhood memories are from Big Cedar Lake, where I spent summers sailing and racing. But the biggest part of my childhood was music. I started piano at four and gave my first classical concert at ten.

At fifteen, I left home for Interlochen Arts Academy, an arts boarding school in Michigan, where I spent three years studying classical piano and voice before graduating. It's also where I discovered songwriting. Four hours of daily practice were expected, but three of mine often turned into writing songs. That wasn't quite what the department had planned, but I kept finding my way back to songwriting.

Years later, another obsession took over: senior dog rescue. It started when I told my husband, Dean, that for my Christmas present, I wanted to donate to a rescue. He told me about Forever Loved Pet Sanctuary, and that is how I discovered them. I went on to spend years with the sanctuary in Scottsdale, fostering, adopting, and eventually serving as the Director of Development.

That work is a huge part of who I am, and it also forced me to think more deeply about animals in general. The more I learned about animal agriculture, the harder it became to reconcile saving one animal while eating another. Eventually, I stopped eating meat, dairy, and eggs, which is also how my baking journey unexpectedly began.

Around 2020, during the pandemic and early motherhood, I started baking constantly. Dean and I now have two little kids: our 2-and-a-half-year-old son, Henry, and our almost-5-year-old daughter, Madeleine. At first, I was just following recipes. Then I got hooked on the chemistry and how tiny changes can completely transform a dessert. I started creating recipes I could not find anywhere else, often based on nostalgic flavors I had in my head, and turning them into these outrageous cakes.

That is where Obsessed Cakes came from.

Eventually, I pushed myself to branch out into other desserts, especially loaves. The Old-Fashioned Donut Loaf was actually a complete accident. I was trying to make a blondie coffee cake, but the moment I took the first bite, all I could taste was an old-fashioned donut. I could not get over how the ingredients and textures had baked into something entirely different from what I intended.

I had as many people as I could try it to make sure I was not imagining it, and they tasted the donut too. With a pinch of nutmeg to bring that familiar flavor into focus, the Old-Fashioned Donut Loaf took shape entirely by mistake.

That first donut loaf took off and turned into a whole series. Now it is one of the things I am most known for. Arguably, I might even like donut loaves more than cake now, which I never thought I would be able to say.

I develop and test my recipes using dairy-free ingredients because that is what I use. But Obsessed Cakes is not about telling anyone how to eat. It is about making recipes that work and taste incredible. If a conventional ingredient works the same way, I will say so. I do not want someone buying a specialty ingredient they do not normally use when something already in their refrigerator will work just as well. My goal is for as many people as possible to make these recipes without compromising the dessert.

Looking back, I have never been great at being casually interested in things. It was music, then rescue, then baking.

The difference is that baking never started to feel like work. It is what I think about constantly, and I wake up wanting to do it.

So it turns out, Obsessed Cakes is a pretty accurate name.