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The joy of ugly cakes

Once dismissed as gaudy, maximalist cakes are now a marker of whimsy, nostalgia — and a small business revolution

Staff Writer

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The joy of ugly cakes (Paper Boat Creative / Getty Images )
The joy of ugly cakes (Paper Boat Creative / Getty Images )

Last week, I stumbled upon a headline that made me pause mid-scroll: “Enough With the Ugly Cakes.” The op-ed, published in The Cut on July 11, was paired with a collage of ornate confections — a baby-blue heart topped with glistening cherries, a towering pastel creation flecked with rock candy and flowers, and a pair of Victorian-style cakes done up in sugary shades of pink and yellow. I assumed it was satire. Or rage-bait. Or both.

But the piece was earnest in its frustration. The author lamented that modern cakes — particularly those deemed chic enough for social media or a well-dressed birthday party — had become overwrought and overdesigned. “The prices made my eyes water,” she wrote. “But after a while, so did the cakes themselves.” What followed was a full-throated takedown of maximalist baking, complete with aesthetic dismissals (“vintage monstrosities,” “floral slop”) and a laundry list of visual offenses: thick Lambeth piping, bows, glitter-dusted cherries, frosting in excess, and so-called “shapeless mounds…slathered with icing and rammed with bits of inedible flora.”

The term “Ugly Cakes” — rendered in all caps, with evident disdain — was the author’s catchall for what she saw as a style gone off the rails. But what the piece overlooked entirely was the intention and layered artistry behind these bakes. The critique felt not just snobbish, but oddly incurious, a misreading of cakes that are, at heart, celebrations of joy.

There’s no denying that the author harbors strong feelings against “Ugly Cakes.” But what’s so distasteful about her writing is the lack of consideration awarded to the bakers she baselessly targets. Direct links to bakers’ websites and Instagram feeds are scattered throughout the piece. Yet there’s no real acknowledgement of the labor or craftsmanship that goes into making these cakes, no insight into the lengthy thought process behind formulating the perfect flavor combinations and no actual research done on the sourcing of ingredients that go in and on the cakes.

Many of the bakers who are targeted don’t have their own brick-and-mortar bakeries. Instead, they run their business from commissaries or their home kitchen, making them known as cottage bakers. As explained by food writer and cake scholar KC Hysmith, cottage bakers lack an established marketing team that larger, chain bakeries naturally have. For these bakers, having a strong social media presence and posting eye-catching photos of their baked goods is paramount when it comes to selling and expanding their business. So to diminish their visuals as superficial — even going as far as to claim that “Instagram face has officially come for the dessert table,” per the author — is odd.

“Cake shaming is not only weird, but such a strange use of energy,” Hysmith wrote in her own response to the op-ed. “Yet it’s exactly the kind of thing our society tends to do to anything related to pleasure, especially when it’s created for or by a woman.”

While the author does state that these cakes require “skill, artistry, and impressive amounts of labor to create,” she’s quick to trash them as “gaudy, boring, and somewhat infantilizing.” Indeed, the author is entitled to her own opinions and preferences. Taste is subjective and so is aesthetic — maximalist cakes aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s OK. But it’s also important to remember that words hold immense power. For the author to use a major platform to bash professional bakers simply because she had a few “Ugly Cakes” that were “dry” and tasted “suspiciously like boxed vanilla,” is straight up cruel. Frankly, it’s a flaming hot take that’s best kept private, reserved only for the Notes App or a conversation at the dinner party table.

“Obviously, all words, in the large way, are subjective, but the word ugly is incredibly subjective,” Hysmith said. “It’s one thing for one of these amazing bakers to call their cakes ugly — it’s an ownership of a word or a phrase. But for someone else to come in and call these cakes ugly is a whole different thing. And then to compare the baking to that is, I think, just weird and hilarious all at the same time.”

Here’s what a few bakers had to say:

The op-ed struck a chord with small bakers nationwide, many of whom shared their sentiments on Instagram.

“Most concerning is how pieces like this embolden others to leave damaging reviews on Yelp or Google, criticism that directly impacts small businesses,” wrote Poulette Bakeshop, the Colorado-based artisanal pastry shop run by chefs Alen Ramos and Carolyn Nugent. “Baking should spark joy for both the maker and the recipient. There’s room for a trifle and a heart-shaped Lambeth cake. One doesn’t cancel the other.”

In the post’s comments section, chef Morgan Knight, whose NYC-based bakery Saint Street Cakes was hyperlinked in the article, wrote, “As one of the bakeries tagged in the article, you summed up my thoughts and feelings perfectly! Just plain condescending; I [Love Letter Emoji] ugly cakes forever!”


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“Ace of Cakes” star Duff Goldman also commented: “In a culture of ever increasing shifts towards digital, non-human, and/or mass production, why would we seek to diminish the importance of products made by human hands with craft and care? We all feel the increasing coldness of digital culture all around us. It’s unsettling and kinda scary. Celebrate skill. Celebrate small business. Support the people, the real people, who follow their dreams and endure the hardships of owning a business in a world that is so massively dominated by big box stores and ones and zeros. Keep making those beautiful cakes.”

In a separate post, Berta Buggs, the baker behind CC’s Sweets Bakeshop, wrote, “Not everything has to be sleek or minimal to be beautiful. Some of us find joy in the loud, the quirky, the over-the-top. And that joy? It’s real. It’s valid. And it deserves respect.

“I’m not baking for algorithms or aesthetics. I’m baking for JOY. For big feelings. For people who light up when they see a cake that’s bold, nostalgic, sparkly, or just a little bit weird — because that’s what makes it beautiful. You don’t have to get it. But you also don’t get to shame it.”

By Joy Saha

Joy Saha is a staff writer at Salon. She writes about food news and trends and their intersection with culture. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

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