Text by Courtney Kassel & Gaby Scelzo / Photography by Jack Strutz

For 21of21, GOOGLE SHOPPING and PAPER came together to break down some of the most memorable shopping moments of 2021 based on Google's trending search data. After we finished baking out banana breads, it was on to bigger and better things — like cake! In the US, Google search interest for “baking,” reached a peak in February, then search interest for “cake” hit a peak in March and a few months later search interest got more specific, with “princess cake” peaking in June of this year. Sorry pie fans!

A French bulldog puppy lays belly-down, chunky legs sprawled behind its body, face covered in plump rolls of fur and fat with big, glassy black eyes. Suddenly, a large chef’s knife enters the foreground and swiftly slices into the puppy, revealing not a gruesome scene, but a tight-crumbed chocolate cake enrobed in layers of buttercream and fondant. We’ve all seen this video, among other similar trompe l’oeil cakes: a can of baked beans, a single Croc, even a human hand. “Is it cake?” read the titles of these videos for what felt like all of last year. How did we get here?

Cake has persisted through the era of social media, albeit in different forms. The early aughts saw the rise of the cupcake. Sprinkles stores multiplied like rabbits and corporate celebrations were incomplete without the company logo made out of Baked by Melissa’s one-bite wonders. We were all but convinced that Cupcake Wars and DC Cupcake were the most riveting shows on television. Then, our Instagram feeds flooded with time-lapse videos of layer cakes decorated in swoops, swirls and drips. Pinterest became saturated with pastel masterpieces covered in buttercream clouds, flowers and even frogs. TikTok gave baby bundt cakes their 15 minutes of fame last summer. But why cake? It’s hard to say. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s an evolutionary pull towards bright colors and sweet things, founded in some prehistoric instinct. Perhaps, it’s the idea that cake is a blank slate for art. They’re constantly evolving in form and in flavor, but always allow for style with substance — unsurprising for visual-based social media. But that changed during the pandemic.

Last year, we went back to basics. The ability to control anything at all, to follow a recipe, however simple, and achieve predictive success, however small, was a welcome change from increasingly omnipresent uncertainty and panic. Was it anxiety baking, or perhaps “procrastibaking”? Whatever you want to call it, the idea of releasing stress through the act of baking was nothing new, but it certainly soared during the early weeks and months of the pandemic. We fell particularly hard for a whipping cream cake recipe from Reddit's /Old_Recipes thread going viral. It came from someone's husband's grandma's cookbook from Iowa, and therefore lacked the substitution suggestions and lengthy story about the cake’s taste, texture and history that preface most of today’s online recipes. Instead, we found that the short, inexplicit ingredient list and unembellished directions provided us with the sense of simplicity and relaxation we’d been yearning for, and the first bite of cake with momentary comfort, a feeling we thought we’d all but forgotten.

Evidently, cake possesses the power to comfort without even needing to be eaten. From Wayne Thiebaud prints to John Derian candles to fake cakes made of styrofoam, spackle and acrylic paint, inedible cakes are everywhere. Which brings us back to the cake trends of 2021. Divorced from each other, banned from coming together for celebrations big and small, we were forced to consume cake another way: on our screens, from the illusions of “Is it cake?” to Tsunami Cakes, a trend wherein an acetate collar is removed to release a cascade of colorful frosting down the cake like some kind of saccharine magic trick. The visuals arrest us, a dizzying display of fondant sprinkles and edible glitter. What do they all have in common? In not a single one of these viral videos do you see someone actually eat the cake. For all we know, they may also be made of foam and cardboard, shaped and shaved just right to achieve a perfect faux “crumb.” And yet, they still delight and satisfy in the ways we’ve come to expect from cake.

So what does the future look like for cake? As we head into the second winter of our discontent, there’s a widespread sentiment of malaise, unease and straight-up boredom. All jokes about smelling fresh sourdough bread and hearing the faint echo of, “Hey all you cool cats and kittens” aside, it’s beginning to sink in that we may very well be in “this” for some time longer. And, if the past year and a half has taught us anything, it’s to tolerate a little more bitterness in the world, and perhaps in our food too. With all the loss and grief, celebrations have taken on a bittersweet tone and the cakes we’re bringing to them seem to reflect that. Bakers everywhere are leaning into tart, spicy and savory ingredients like goat cheese and Szechuan peppercorns, bringing depths of flavor typically associated with savory cuisine into their desserts. Even your mom is sprinkling a little Maldon on her chocolate chip cookies these days. We’ve grown to accept, and even expect, a little salty with our sweet.

At the end of the day, the truth is that cake does have angelic qualities. Ethereal layers and silky frosting that, when eaten together, flood your body with comfort, bliss, sugar. Just one bite can carry us to a euphoric state that illuminates how sweet and uncomplicated life can be. For others, it's simply a cake's presence that offers enlightenment — something a warm pie or pint of ice cream doesn’t. Cake can signify the beginning: of a new job, a marriage, another year. Sometimes, it's a symbol of the end: of a project, the night, another year. Though there’s still so much uncertainty about what the future, or even this winter, will look like, there’s comfort in knowing we will always have cake to cope with and even celebrate the changes.

VP of Production: Katie Karole, Creative Director: Jordan Bradfield, Digital Director: Justin Moran, Art Director: Malcolm Mammone, Managing Editor (21of21): Laia Garcia-Furtado, Managing Editor (PAPER): Eliza Weinreb, Producer: Amanda Kahle, Cakes: Debbie Does Cakes, Set Designer: Amy Taylor, Photo Editor: Ethan Skaates