When Michael C. Platt affirms, “Kids can help solve big problems,” he practices what he preaches.
The 16-year-old author, pastry chef, and social activist has run Michaels Desserts for five years now, launching his Maryland company with a baked-in charitable mission to help those in need. Following the Toms shoes model, Platt donates a cupcake to homeless shelters for every one he sells. Through his bakery and a nonprofit he founded, Platt has donated 500,000 meals to the hungry.
His activism began with an awakening in first grade, when Platt found himself “crying from anger after hearing a story of people being mistreated” due to racism, Platt writes on his website.
When he asked relatives to recount the family’s history, he learned about earlier generations of southern sharecroppers and the 20th-century civil-rights movement. He observed his elders performing community service to help the less fortunate. Around the dinner table, he was drawn to the multisensory comfort of lovingly homecooked food.
A health condition obligated Platt to reduce physical activity. He traded bicycling for baking, anchoring his creativity and social conscience around baked goods.
Freedom Fighter Cupcakes, then, are a fitting cover image for Michaels Desserts: Sweets for a Cause. This is Platt’s first book, set for a Nov. 1 release. Cupcakes constitute the first chapter, which includes recipes honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., Booker T. Washington, Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman, Malala Yousafzai, José Andrés, and other historical and contemporary figures.
Platt weaves family stories into some of the other pie, cake, and bread recipes. In the latter category, Platt refers to yeasted breads without explanation, likely to raise questions for the targeted 8- to 12-year-old readers. Instructions, specialized ingredients, equipment, and techniques are otherwise written clearly, making the yeasted oversight the exception.
A couple of pages are devoted to Platt’s nonprofit organization, which provides nutritious, nonperishable snacks to food insecure children. Through the nonprofit, Platt aspires to open a pay-what-you-can grocery store and teach budget cooking classes, among other goals to “help solve big problems.”
In the book and a 2019 TEDx talk, Platt issues a call to adults to listen to youth and open doors for them to influence the public policies that affect them. The TEDx stage was one of several high-profile platforms to spotlight Platt. He has also appeared on Kids Baking Championship, Good Morning America, CNN, and other national and local media.
Young activists aspiring to follow Platt’s model can find two servings of empowerment in Michaels Desserts. There’s the short-term gratification of using one’s own hands to bake a treat that can be enjoyed at once. If this satisfies the body, the second helping feeds the mind and spirit through food-centric history lessons and straight-talking support from Platt to join the youth movement for social change.
It’s peers to whom Platt dedicates his book, namely the “kids who are working to change the world. No matter how big or small, your work is important. Do everything you can and never give up.”
As many professionals have observed, baking allows for a therapeutic sense of accomplishment. Here Platt has authored a heartfelt recipe for youth to taste success in the kitchen and the body politic.
Andrea Adleman | Cupcakologist 