Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism – Albert Einstein

One of our very first birthday cake designs, created almost nine years ago, was our inspired-by-Homer Simpson cake. Back then, decorating a cake with doughnuts and a chocolate drip felt pretty radical. I even popped some popcorn on top and christened it “Homer”. To my surprise, for one of my earliest designs, it was a hit.

Since then we’ve released over a hundred cakes on our online shop. With every new creation I tweak recipes, refine techniques, and play with composition. Because I’m also knee-deep in the day-to-day running of the business, I rarely pause to take stock of how far we’ve come with all our cake “tweakments”.

Recently, we decided to do just that. We’d launched our new website, survived a pandemic and even a bakery fire, and somehow still had a business to celebrate. But as we scrolled back through our earliest work… I cringed. Truly. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, and our customers were happy, but the difference between then and now was astonishing.

Some of our original cakes, like the Homer Simpson cake, are almost unrecognisable from their first photos. Our aesthetic now is fuller, more refined, more intentionally abundant — nobody has complained about extra doughnuts and macarons but they definitely get them.

So instead of simply celebrating, I started critiquing everything and began working through our entire collection — including classics like our vanilla cakes — to ensure every product matches the higher standards we hold today.

Our Victoria Sponge cake was the first to feature a strawberry jam drip. At the time I was chuffed to be using something other than chocolate, but jam is a fickle diva. Too warm and it melts the buttercream; too cold and it clumps. Both made their cameo appearances in the original design. It still sold — and when something sells, I lull myself into thinking, “Well, people like it, so it must be fine.” But aesthetically? I hated it. Garish, messy, and entirely not *me*. I kept practising, getting close to giving up, until one day it behaved: glossy, smooth, and beautifully cooperative.

And so here they are: our new-and-improved Homer Simpson cake (now yellow, because of course it should be) and the refined Victoria Sponge.

It makes me so happy that our customers love these refreshed designs — they’ve quickly become some of our most popular. And now, back to work I go… there are plenty more cakes waiting their glow-up.

Lots of love,

Reshmi xoxo

Love, Reshmi xoxo

If you’re craving something beautifully timeless, our delicate vanilla cakes are always a good idea.