Archive note: This was our November 2024 outlook for the cake trends we expected to shape 2025. Sales, retailer examples and popularity comments below describe that period rather than current 2026 performance or availability.
There’s always a new cake trend that crops up each year and takes social media by storm. As a London craft-bakery founder, one of my jobs is to spot trends and decide which ones are actually worth making for our customers.
So how did we spot these 2025 trends? Quite simply: customers asked for them, or we created them and watched the demand.
Top 10 Cake Trends for 2025
1) Kitsch-cool
Cakes with old-fashioned piping, glacé cherries, ribbons and a piped message on top. It was giving granny chic. Whether you called it vintage-style piping, Lambeth style or retro decorated, the mood was old school but cool.
For farewells, exams, new jobs and other new beginnings, our Good Luck Vintage Cake used the same message-led vintage style. Prefer another design? Any current Anges cake can carry a complimentary personalised plaque.
That same vintage-piped look also works beautifully for engagement cakes.
2) Mile-High
Layers stacked as tall as skyscrapers with sponge and fillings such as buttercream, ganache and praline pastes. Following Get Baked’s Big Bertha pop-up at Fortnum & Mason, we expected this style to keep climbing. When we had just launched our Mile High Chocolate Pistachio Cake, it quickly became one of our stronger new sellers at the time.
3) Everything Pistachio
Everything was being pistachio-fied, and I was not complaining. Cakes, cookies, Dubai chocolate, hot chocolate, lattes and tiramisu were all getting the green treatment. Pistachio was also one of our bakery’s strongest flavours in that period.
I’ve made my obsession with pistachio very well known and should probably buy shares in Pisti.
UK supermarkets were also releasing more pistachio creams around the time this article was written; current ranges change, so check retailers directly rather than treating this archive as a stock guide.
4) Matcha
Matcha was making a more mainstream comeback. Our matcha cake collection shows how differently the flavour can work with chocolate, Oreo, sakura-inspired styling and celebration cakes.
5) Burn-away cakes
Burn-away cakes had exploded on TikTok and were being requested for birthdays, anniversaries, gender reveals, baby showers and corporate gifting. A burn-away cake uses a top edible sheet that is carefully ignited to reveal an image or message beneath.
6) Divorce / break-up cakes
We had our first divorce-cake order years earlier: a bright two-tier chocolate cake with the message “Freedom at last! No more VANILLA!”. By 2024 we had noticed more enquiries for divorce and break-up cakes. I don’t wish ill upon anyone’s relationship, but if it means another cake order for us…
@angesdesucre Break ups never tasted this good
7) Sweet-n-Sour
Citrus has always been popular in desserts, but we were seeing more punchy sour flavours such as sour cherry, yuzu and rhubarb. Here we paired cherry compote with pistachio and chocolate, ticking several of the period’s trends in one.
8) Eastern influence
Sweet-and-savoury and sweet-and-spicy combinations were moving further into the bakery scene. Miso, tahini, black sesame, chilli and ube were appearing alongside familiar vanilla and chocolate.
9) Kunafa
The viral Dubai chocolate trend brought pistachio cream and crunchy kataifi pastry to a huge new audience. Traditional kunafa or knafeh is its own dessert with regional variations; the “kunafa” shorthand used in Dubai-chocolate-style fillings usually refers to that pistachio-and-kataifi combination rather than the full traditional dish.
By late 2024 that texture combination was appearing in cakes, cookies, brownies, doughnuts and cheesecakes.
10) Buttercream florals
Flowers have always had a place in patisserie, but beautifully piped buttercream flowers were gaining real traction. Korean cake artists helped popularise highly realistic buttercream blooms where the piping can be difficult to distinguish from real flora.
Our Buttercream Bloom Bouquet cake also saw a quick uptake in orders after launch. That observation belongs to the 2024/25 period rather than a claim about current sales.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this archived round-up of what we thought would shape 2025. Which trends aged well, and which deserved a quick fizzling-away?
Happy baking,
Reshmi xoxo
Earlier in the archive: Burn-Away Cakes: The Hottest Cake Trend in London
Later in the archive: Emerging Cake Flavour Trends in the UK for 2025
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