Archive note, reviewed September 2026: this article was originally written in May 2019 after Choccywoccydoodah ceased trading. It is kept as a piece of cake-industry history rather than current news.
Why the closure mattered
When Choccywoccydoodah closed in 2019, it was tempting for other cake businesses to look at the disappearance of a famous competitor and think only about the commercial gap it left behind. That was never how it felt to me. The business had helped make elaborate cake and chocolate sculpture visible to a much wider audience, and its disappearance was a reminder that popularity and commercial durability are not the same thing.
Exposure does not pay the bills
Choccywoccydoodah had extraordinary visibility: destination shops, television coverage, celebrity customers and cakes that were instantly recognisable. Yet exposure is only useful when it turns into sustainable revenue at a margin that can support the people, premises and materials behind the work.
That lesson still matters to independent food businesses. Press coverage, social reach and a busy shop window can be valuable, but they are not substitutes for pricing properly, controlling costs and protecting cash flow.
Creative work has to be priced as work
A highly sculpted celebration cake is not simply a list of ingredients. It can involve design time, moulding, painting, structural work, specialist equipment, transport and hours of skilled labour. Comparing it only by cost per portion misses most of what the customer is commissioning.
That tension is familiar to anyone making complex cakes commercially: customers see an edible object, while the bakery also has to account for the labour and infrastructure needed to create it safely and consistently.
Reviews, reputation and the emotional side of small business
Independent businesses live unusually close to their customer feedback. Good reviews can be enormously helpful; criticism can also reveal genuine weaknesses that need fixing. But running a creative business means learning to separate useful feedback from noise and to avoid making fear of a bad review the basis for commercial decisions.
A genuine creative loss
What I remember most about Choccywoccydoodah is the confidence of the work. The cakes were theatrical, peculiar, highly recognisable and unapologetically their own. That sort of creative identity makes an industry more interesting, even when your own aesthetic is completely different.
The lesson I still take from it
The closure remains a useful reminder that brand fame, creative acclaim and sales volume do not automatically make a business resilient. A cake company still has to price its labour, protect its margins and build a model that survives after the publicity has moved on.
For the cakes Anges de Sucre makes now, browse our cake collection. This article stays here for a different reason: as part of the history of the modern British cake scene.
Lots of love,
Reshmi xoxo
To any cake decorator
Take it from someone who has been there when cake decoration of a 3 tier wedding cake took 6 or more weeks to complete with tools available were only the one’s you could make yourself, That …cake decoration is ever charging. That the real money is in creating and selling a tool of some kind to all those up and coming cake makers at home and in business. Chocks worky were mad not doing a books …for that’s where the big money is and a on-going appeal to want more. Just ask Jamie Oliver or Joyce Myer…that how they make easy money that supply’s their other ventures and keeps them swimming in flooding times…(they happen now more now than the next generation of mobile phone s) …I have to say while I can see the appeal of cakes piled with bars of bought cookies and choc bars …its disappointing to see how cake dec has lowered it self…the talent is going to be lost in making a icing flower that looks like its the real thing :( …as I have been on this planet for 60 yrs and 40 of which has been in food and cake dec..I know that like all things that everything goes in full circles…so I hope I here to see the come back of brides wanting cakes covered in icing flowers and fruit cake traditional love. Love your post/blog anges …its the first honest post on cake dec I ever read. All the best for 2022 …cheers to the future of cake dec.
A worthwhile read and an eye opener for me, just a punter. We chanced upon Choccywoccydoodah in 2013 on a trip to London and had cake and hot chocolates all round. Like being in Wonderland with the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse. The thought, care and skill that goes into these artistic cake and drink creations should carry a price tag accordingly. They’re a treat – as long as you’re not avoiding simple carbs that is! If they were cheap they wouldn’t exist as who could afford to sell them? Social media can be brutal and unfair. Seeing bad press in print must be hurtful and how do you defend? I wish you all the best in your ventures. Just sayin’.
Sad to see you go out of Business. I loved your Bakery. You had the most Beautiful Cakes and dessert ever. I loved your Bakery so much
Sad in California…..I will miss you so much