Top Cake Trends of 2024

Archive · 2024 Forecast

Top Cake Trends of 2024: What We Predicted

Archive note: This article was written at the end of 2023 as our forecast for 2024. References to prices, retailers, demand and the wider economy describe that period; they are not current market statistics. The list mixed first-party bakery experience with Reshmi’s opinion, so it should be read as an informed forecast rather than a national market survey.

The backdrop was a bruising year for food businesses. ONS data at the time showed food-price inflation easing from its March 2023 peak, but household and bakery costs were still a major part of the conversation. Against that background, these were the five cake directions we thought mattered.

1. Pistachio

Pistachio was already a long-running Anges de Sucre favourite, so our prediction was less “new ingredient” and more “premium flavour moving into more formats”. Cakes, gelato, pastries and drinks were all giving it wider visibility. See the current pistachio cake collection.

2. Heart-shaped vintage cakes

Lambeth-style piping was not new either. The 2024 twist we liked was the heart shape: romantic, compact, highly personal and well suited to piped messages. That prediction aged rather well; the style remains part of the wider heart cake and vintage-cake language.

3. Oil-based sponge

Our enthusiasm came from production experience rather than a health claim. Oil-based sponge can stay tender and avoids a butter-creaming stage, which suits the way our Hero Sponge formula works. It is one technique, not proof that oil cakes are universally superior or automatically suitable for a particular diet.

4. Less-sweet buttercream

The original article framed this as “reduced sugar” and wandered into obesity statistics. The more useful bakery point is flavour balance. We have long preferred Swiss meringue buttercream because it tastes less aggressively sweet than the very high-icing-sugar style of frosting. That is a recipe preference, not a medical or weight-management claim.

5. Cake hybrids

We expected formats that combined familiar desserts, textures and visual drama to keep attracting attention. Cake sandwiches were our obvious in-house example. The durable lesson is that a hybrid needs to taste good after the camera is put away.

As ever, a forecast is not a scorecard for the whole industry. Some ideas grow, some disappear, and the interesting bit is comparing the prediction with what customers actually bought later.