Archived article note: This birthday cake trends article was originally written for 2017. Anges de Sucre no longer produces vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free or egg-free physical cakes. Our kitchen handles gluten, dairy, eggs, soya, peanuts and tree nuts, so we cannot guarantee cakes are free from traces of allergens. The current Birthday collection is available from our main shop.
View the newer post on birthday cake trends
Birthday cakes are the most important part of the party. It’s what people remember even if they can’t remember how old you are, and it is almost certainly what gets photographed before anyone is allowed a slice.
There are so many styles of birthday cakes to choose from, and every year brings its own wave of trends. Some last. Some need to be quietly escorted from the premises.
Birthday Cake Trends From 2017
1) Tiered Cakes
More people began marking milestone birthdays with tall, stacked cakes. For clarification, cake tiers refer to different sized cakes stacked above each other, whereas cake layers refer to the number of layers within each tier. You do not want to muddle up tiers and layers unless you enjoy confusing everyone in the bakery.
2) Free-From Cakes
This was a visible trend in 2017, but our bakery policy has changed. Anges de Sucre no longer produces vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free or egg-free physical cakes. Our kitchen handles gluten, dairy, eggs, soya, peanuts and tree nuts, so we cannot guarantee cakes are free from traces of allergens.
We do retain some home-baking recipe articles and digital recipe downloads for people baking in their own kitchens, but those should not be confused with cakes currently sold by our London bakery.
3) Drip Cakes
Chocolate drip cakes had exploded in popularity and, frankly, they still make sense. A good ganache drip adds flavour, texture and visual drama, especially on chocolate, caramel and birthday cakes.
4) Non-Novelty
Fondant-heavy novelty cakes were starting to give way to buttercream-led designs with smaller decorative details. Buttercream tastes better, feels softer and suits our house style far more than thick sheets of fondant.
5) OTT or Over The Top
Sometimes more is more. Cakes with doughnuts, cookies, chocolate bars, macarons and popcorn became the party piece of the moment. Done well, they still work beautifully. Done badly, they look like a supermarket aisle fell over.
6) Flavours of the Orient
Matcha, pandan, black sesame and other Asian flavours were becoming more visible in cake. That influence remains useful today because it gives cake buyers something more interesting than plain vanilla or chocolate.
7) Buttercream Flowers
Piped buttercream flowers became a softer and more delicious alternative to sugar flowers. They suit birthday cakes, baby showers, elegant grown-up celebrations and anyone who wants flowers without chewing through a lump of sugar paste.
8) Unicorn Cakes
Unicorn cakes were impossible to avoid in 2017. They were colourful, daft and joyful. A little restraint helps, but birthdays can take a bit of nonsense. That is half the point.
9) Croquembouche Cake
Our croquembouches and croquembouche-inspired cakes brought a more theatrical dessert-table feel to birthdays and parties, combining choux, macarons, doughnuts, popcorn and sponge cake into something much more architectural.
10) Birthday Cake Buffet
Dessert tables and birthday cake buffets became popular for larger parties, especially where the host wanted variety as well as a central cake. They still work well for bigger celebrations and corporate events.
This is now an archive trends piece. For the current birthday cake collection with complimentary hand delivery across London and Surrey, view our birthday cake collection.
Lots of love,
Reshmi xoxo
Later in the archive: 5 Wedding Cake Trends to Avoid
Hi J,
Thanks for your comment! I understand what you’re saying but don’t think it’s applicable to the purpose of this post. I can’t speak for @sugarbitesbyemma as they have every right to call their cake by whichever name they please but we were just referring to all buttercream flowers (and I believe the blossoms are also made of buttercream in that particular example).
Love & Cake!
This is a great article on cute trends, what bothers me however is that people now do not seem to understand the difference between a piped “rosette” and a “rose”. A buttercream rose is created on a nail built up in layers using a rose petal tip and placed onto the work after it has set, a rosette is piped directly onto the work with an open star tip. Both are beautiful, but look nothing alike. Example: “sugarbitesbymama” has created gold blossoms over large piped rosettes, not roses. It’s helpful to differentiate so that people who are still learning understand that there is a different look to each and one may not be what you’re looking for but when you define both under the same name, and go searching for tutorials you risk confusing people cause they’re not actually getting what they searched for, but they don’t understand why.
nice
The unicorn cake is so cute.
The unicorn cake is so cute.