Stoke baker goes viral after making nostalgic cakes inspired by school lunches
A woman from Stoke-on-Trent has gone viral on TikTok for baking nostalgic cakes inspired by school lunches - including butterscotch tarts, custard, shortbread and iced sponges.
Becky Evans, 24, began her baking career over lockdown, making and delivering cakes to her friends and neighbours.
Eager to get her business up and running, she started a TikTok account, @beckysbakingstoke.
She posted a video of herself baking a chocolate crunch – a gooey and crunchy chocolate slice that most people remember from their primary school days.
Becky was thrilled by the response, and began her series, "School Dinner Recipes," which has amassed nearly 15 million views on TikTok.
She entertains her 200k followers by posting recipes for nostalgic cakes, including butterscotch tarts, shortbread and iced sponge – even branching out to include chocolate and mint custards.
"This was just a random idea I had one morning," said Becky.
"I woke up and didn't have much to do that day, and normally, I'd just bake something fun for myself.
"I wanted to make an old school-style cake to have in the evening, and I thought I could film them for TikTok, and maybe even make a series of me making them.
"At the time, I only had about a hundred followers, so I didn't think anyone would see it.
"It was insane. I posted the video and closed the app for a second, and when I went back on my phone, it had 11,000 views – which for me at the time was a lot.
"A few minutes later, I had hundreds of notifications, and the video was at hundreds of thousands of views.
"It was really exciting! I was texting my sister the whole time – we'd always made jokes about me being 'TikTok famous,' but I never thought it would actually happen!"
Becky's most popular video is her classic sponge cake with white icing, sprinkles, and custard, which has a whopping 6.2 million views and over 2,000 comments reminiscing about their own primary school experience – and even requesting new treats for her to make.
Even classic British brands have joined in the fun – with ASDA's official account commenting, "primary school cake is top tier TBF."
Becky now hopes to grow her following even more – and has made the huge step of launching her own Etsy shop to sell her school-style treats.
"I'd always enjoyed baking, but over lockdown I was baking a lot more because I wasn't working," said Becky.
"People in the area started asking me to bake them things, so I made a lot for family and friends around that time.
"Last June, I decided to bite the bullet and register as a business.
"It's been quite overwhelming at times! Before that first video went viral, I had just started my Etsy shop, and I had a couple of orders every so often.
"My website was linked on my TikTok, and then orders started flying in.
"I had hundreds of orders, and it's just me doing everything, so it was quite wild trying to keep up with that!
"But the response has been really great. Naturally, you do get negative comments, but most people are really nice or asking questions.
"I even get messages telling me that people love the series and they're excited to order something!"
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