As they adapt to the life-or-death circumstances of the pandemic, some bakeries are using cakes as media for social commentary. Whether it’s toilet paper hoarding or health reminders, these cakes are making statements.
They are also providing psychological comfort because “Nothing makes you feel better when things are crazy than cupcakes!”
The preceding clips represent some of the earliest bakeries to fashion toilet paper cakes. A German bakery also introduced them around the same time.
Bakeries from coast to coast followed suit.
https://twitter.com/stonecold2050/status/1245029369728208897
Such creativity included designs for cupcake toppers, exemplified by this and this.
This bakery considered not just toilet paper but a longer list of in-demand items and turned many into cakes.
The bakery posts the full menu of creations on its quarantine cakes page.
More such confections:
Add face mask cupcakes and cookies, health PSA cakes and cupcakes, and Dr. Fauci cupcakes.
A Chicago bakery created “Dr. Fauci stud muffins” and masked cakepops.
Here is another cupcake and doughnuts bearing images of the good doctor.
“Local Bakery Whips Up Dr. Fauci Cupcakes” tells the backstory.
Sales of the above doughnut were so strong the bakery began national shipping, the owner tells the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
By the end of March, it was possible to “find Dr. Anthony Fauci’s face on everything,” per a CNN report.
Enter the quarantine cake genre.
This bakery inspired a few more.
Then it captured bakers’ imaginations worldwide and they followed the imitation-flattery path.
Dramatizing the viral moment, bakeries in Florida and Louisiana have designed cakes to look like infected cells. This one is from Virginia.
Canadian representation:
Mexico engages.
A Kolkata, India bakery took this approach:
What’s more, cupcakeries are marketing DIY kits to deliver the baking exercise directly to customers.
I bought the kit above and tried my hand at pastry artistry.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-VP9uGlgox/
When customers buy a kit from this Tampa bakery, they can also enter their handiwork in a contest.
Add news coverage of this contest.
Here is a summary of this unforgettable spring.
Making it sound like it’s a new phenomenon, the Washington Post observes, “Coronavirus-shaped cakes and cupcakes are popping up in fine-dining restaurants, bakeries and home kitchens around the world.”
With a culture war heating up the summer, the language has turned more blunt.
“Pandemic Baking Just Got Weirder,” the New York Times declared in the fall. Here’s one of the images included in the story.
By year’s end, some bakeries returned to the toilet paper theme and sent a New Year’s message to “flush 2020.”
Andrea Adleman | Cupcakologist 