Burn-away cakes: The fiery new dessert trend for anyone obsessed with a good reveal

Cakes are enjoying their moment under the spotlight across social media. Recently, there’s been an outpour of trendy cakes flooding feeds on Instagram and TikTok — hyper-realistic cakes, heart-shaped cakes and whimsical hodgepodge cakes. The latest trend that’s on fire (quite literally actually) are burn-away cakes.

Earlier this year, burn-away cakes skyrocketed to popularity with over 180 million views on TikTok. The mechanics behind the cakes are pretty simple: the top layer typically features a printed image which reveals a new image beneath it once it’s burned. Burn-away cakes come in a myriad of designs, including “Mean Girls”-themed burn book cakes, gender reveal cakes and even a cake that transforms into various Pokémon characters. Several bakeries, including the New York City-based Angelina Bakery, introduced burn-away cakes for Lunar New Year and Valentine’s day.   

The trend first took off thanks to Namaya Navaratnarajah, an Ontario-based baker who shares her baked goodies as @CakesByNams. Navaratnarajah told both Eater and Delish that she didn’t invent the cake style. She was actually inspired by a New Year’s burn-away cake made by Denise Steward, a cake artist and the self-declared OG creator of the fiery cakes. Steward recently made several Super Bowl-inspired cakes featuring cheeky taglines like, “I am just here for the snacks,” and “I am just here for the halftime show” (which flaunts a picture of Usher underneath it).

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Steward, who posts content as Denise’s Delights on both TikTok and Instagram, told TODAY that she wanted to incorporate fire into her cake designs after spotting a Spider-Man cake on social media. “It kind of looked like they used the flash paper that magicians use. I was like, ‘That’s really cool,’” Steward said. “I was like, ‘How could I make that edible?’ So that’s kind of how the wheels started turning in my head.”

How Steward makes her burn-away cakes is explained in a blog post for Paper 2 Eat, an edible cake decoration company. Steward, who has been a brand ambassador for the company, first tops her cake with an image that’s printed onto a thick, white icing frosting sheet. The layer is then bordered by piped icing to create some space between the frosting sheet and the image that will be burned on top of it. The topmost layer of the cake consists of a thin sheet of rice paper or wafer paper with another printed image on it. Wafer paper burns easily because it’s made of starch and oil, hence why it’s placed on top, while the thicker sugar-based frosting sheet is placed on the bottom because it can withstand the heat, the blog post explained.

Navaratnarajah herself also went viral with several of her creations. Her Taylor Swift cake — which racked up an astounding 18.9 million views and 2.4 million likes since Jan. 15 — wowed Swifties online. The top of the cake touts a photo of Swift’s Instagram page with black icing and disco balls for decorations. Once burned, the cake reveals Swift wearing a black one-legged bodysuit while performing on her Eras tour in Arizona. Other notable designs include a “Hunger Games” cake complete with a picture of Katniss Everdeen’s fire gown, a Spider-Man cake and a Josh Hutcherson meme cake.

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In January, burn-away cakes broke into the pop-culture sphere when Ellen DeGeneres hopped on the trend to celebrate her 66th birthday. A video shared on Instagram by the former talk show host showed that the top layer of DeGeneres’ cake read “Happy Birthday.” Once lit, the bottom layer displayed the second part of the message, “Ellen,” alongside several pickleballs — a nod to DeGeneres’ favorite activity.

The grand reveal is what makes burn-away cakes so fascinating on the internet. For years, people have rejoiced in a good reveal, whether that’s a makeover scene (à la “The Princess Diaries”), a gender reveal or a home renovation (à la Chip and Joanna Gaines’ HGTV hit “Fixer Upper”). Reveals, at their core, are entertaining and enthralling. When they come in cake-form, reveals become a newfound sensory spectacle — one that’s for the eyes and taste buds. Why settle for a cake that comes in just one design when you can get two?

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Amid the pandemic, baking became a popular source of amusement for many who were seeking comfort and joy. A lot of folks tried their hand at making sourdough. Countless others focused on making cakes, including chocolate cakes, almond cakes, strawberry cakes, Bundt cakes and plenty more. “In times of waiting and worry, it feels useful to gather ingredients and turn them into something that might bring sweetness to someone’s day. Baking is so much more than following directions; it’s about understanding process. It’s about trust,” wrote Beth Nguyen for TIME.

Cakes, in particular, also became a viral (and somewhat infamous) internet meme called “Is It Cake?” In it, realistic everyday objects or savory foods (like plant pots, a roll of toilet paper or corn on the cob) are cut into with a knife to reveal whether they are made of cake or not. The meme later inspired the 2022 game show-style cooking competition series of the same name.

That’s all to say that cakes aren’t losing their spotlight anytime soon. The burn-away cake trend is just getting started. And bakeries that do sell the fiery cakes are currently experimenting with their recipes in preparation for launching a new, more jaw-dropping fire cake. Angelina Bakery has been working on a burn-away cake that features Chinese cotton candy, or Dragon's beard candy, in its design. The bakery also does custom burn away cakes and messages for a variety of special occasions, including birthdays, gender reveals and announcements.