Some news from Bayou Saint Cake

with all the big feelings that come with it.

I have some news: Bayou Saint Cake (the bakery) will be closing for good by the end of May. To explain why, I’m going to tell you a story that sounds like personal brand myth-making, but happens to be true. 

Gratuitous headshot because I look nice in it (photo by Sarah Becker)

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The last time I saw my mother’s sister alive, my mom and I drove her from her home in Calistoga, California to a family wedding in Stockton in a small gray rental sedan. My aunt Sydney had been diagnosed with dementia before the pandemic, which made phone conversations with her mostly impossible. Covid meant I hadn’t seen her in person in a while, and while some things were the same - her wry Texas drawl, her obstinacy - she was also easily confused. Sydney recognized me but seemed to think I was still a teenager. She was amazed at my confidence in driving and kept remarking on how good I was at navigating the narrow roads. 

The next bit is going to sound apocryphal. We were in my cousin’s backyard, looking out over the arid Napa hills, and Sydney asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was thirty-eight years old. I did not say I wanted to own and run a small boutique cake business. I said I wanted to be a writer. Shortly after that, I bought a book on food writing and began to pitch newspapers and magazines. I put writer in my instagram bio (as if speaking it on social media made it true). A little over a year later, I started this Substack. Progress has been painfully slow. All the while, I have continued to bake cakes as my main source of income. Cakes eat away at all of my time. I work Monday through Saturday and anxiously scan emails on Sunday. I often write my newsletters on the couch well into the evening, sitting next to my wife in front of the tv.

A very early Bayou Saint Cake, from June 2020.

 

I never planned on becoming an entrepreneur or cake “influencer” - I never planned on becoming a cook, period. A rash decision I made as a broke twenty-two year old had become my whole career. When I was a kid, I said I wanted to be an artist and a writer, and at forty, nothing about that has changed. For the past two years I’ve been avoiding the growing chorus of whispers in my brain that said: I do not want to do this anymore. I am afraid that I will lose my authority as a food writer and recipe developer if I am no longer a working chef. And so while my knees creak and my ankles ache with piercing pain and I scrub my one millionth dish, I forge on, scared that it is too late to start over. 

My entire adult career has been in the service industry. To be a small food business owner means being pliant, accommodating, gracious, and hospitable, and while these requirements are only sometimes onerous, I no longer wish to be in service to anyone but myself. I hope that doesn’t sound ungrateful - the truth is I’ll never get over the fact that so many of you have bought cakes from me for so many important occasions in your lives. I’ve loved being a part of them, and I’ve loved getting to know you.

Now that I am on the other side of this decision - to close my baking business for good - I feel a clarity of purpose that has been missing from my working life. I’m also frankly terrified about money and my family’s fragile grip on the middle class. I am hoping that having both of these feelings inhibit my body at once is survivable, and I am hoping to bring you more writing work soon. I’ll still be publishing online classes and recipes, and I’d like to offer support to folks starting small baking businesses in a more tangible way. Bayou Saint Cake (the brand) will remain. I hope you’ll stay tuned. 

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Orders for May will open in a limited and haphazard fashion some time next week. I haven’t quite figured out how I want to arrange them but I’ll let you know when I do!

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If you got through all that - here’s a class announcement, as promised! I’m back with Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street cooking school on Thursday, May 23rd, with a recipe for a single layer carrot cake (it’s really one of my best recipes) and techniques to perfect your buttercream “swoop”. We’ll deep dive ways to flavor swiss meringue buttercream and I’ll talk through sourcing edible or non-toxic flowers. Newsletter subscribers can get 10% off with the code CARROT24 - sign up here.