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Matha Figaro didn’t set out to get into the cannabis business. In fact, the classically trained pastry chef debuted ButACake as a traditional, family-friendly bakery at farmers’ markets around New Jersey. After she reluctantly agreed to bake an infused cake by special request, the business morphed into something completely new. Today, Matha’s cannabis-infused delights are available in more than 150 dispensaries throughout three states, and while she’s been operating on the gray market for nearly a decade, in many ways she’s just getting started.
From the time she received her first Easy Bake Oven at age 8, Matha was always whipping up desserts for family and friends. At college, she spent so much time on her side-hustle baking energy bars for the soccer team that she failed out, eventually landing at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Pittsburgh, where she graduated at the top of her class. There, the first-generation Haitian-American learned to hone her craft and turn her lifelong passion for baking into a real career. After stints in fine dining and corporate management, she founded her own company, ButACake in 2016 in Jersey City, NJ.
At its start, ButA Cake specialized solely in butter cakes (a delicious marriage of pound cake and cobbler) and seasonal fruit syrups made with all-natural and organic ingredients — no artificial dyes, extracts, additives, or preservatives. The brand quickly developed a loyal following of fans with soft spots for sweets. Then one of her regulars made an unusual request. “She was going through chemotherapy, and she asked me for something that could help combat the side effects,” Matha says. It took some convincing, but eventually she relented and cooked up her first batch of infused butter cake. Despite Matha’s lack of cannabis science expertise, she and the client both agreed that she’d created something very, very special. “I told her to keep it quiet, but she couldn’t keep her big mouth shut,” Matha jokes. Within weeks, requests for cannabis edibles flooded her inbox, and she spent the next year growing her client base, learning about cannabis, establishing relationships with growers, and expanding her product line to include all sorts of goodies. “We were making infused everything – pudding, coffee, lemonade. Basically whatever you can eat that brings you joy.”
Her legitimate company morphed into an underground edibles supplier, and business was booming. She teamed up with her best friend, Yasmin Obie, and the duo spent nights baking and days coordinating distribution. “At first I was riding my bike making deliveries around Jersey City and Hoboken, and Yasmin was my dispatcher,” Matha recalls. When pandemic lockdown set in, demand for her ooey-gooey goods soared, and she grew her staff from two to seven to service all of New Jersey.
ButACake emerged from the shadows to once again become a legitimate business in 2023, making it the first legal Black woman-owned edibles brand in New Jersey and Delaware. Matha’s famous infused peanut butter and jelly brownies, chocolate chunk cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and classic brownies are available in more than 150 dispensaries in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Jersey and Maryland also carry the brand’s newest product, ButACake Strips, which Matha couldn’t be more excited about. These vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free strips dissolve under the tongue (or in your warm drink), quickly delivering a 10 mg dose of THC.
“It even makes your breath smell good,” says Matha, “It’s an homage to the Listerine Strip that inspired the product.” Available in Chocolate Mint, Ginger Peach, and Blue Blizzard (mint), they’re easy to slip in your pocket or purse and carry with you wherever you might want to partake.
Setting her sights beyond edibles, Matha co-founded CannPowerment Contract Manufacturing, a manufacturer serving companies in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, enabling her to branch out into other delivery methods like vapes, flower, and topicals. “There are so many different ways to consume cannabis,” she says. “We want to work with the plant in more ways than just one.”
Have you tried ButACake? Comment below to let us know your thoughts.
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