Digging into the vintage birthday cake trend with Eloise Market and Cakery

Birthdays are a big deal. Just ask our team, which has been planning 225’s 20th for over a year.

Big deals call for big celebrations. And, of course, cake. Gone are the days of a simple store-bought sheet. Instead, many confectionery customers are going for the ever-so-trendy, vintage-inspired cakes that are clogging up Instagram pages and Pinterest feeds with a lot of piping details and sugary embellishments.

These dramatic desserts have been in and out of trend for centuries, with the piping technique most notably traced back to baker and cake decorator Joseph Lambeth in the 1930s. But the look goes back as far as the Victorian era. Eloise Market and Cakery owner Madelyn Schmidt Burr says the popular Netflix hit Bridgerton could be behind this design’s uptick in recent popularity.

“Stuff goes in and out of style, and everything comes back,” she says. “It loops back to the old-style cakes.”

Burr has been pumping out these treats in round, heart and star shapes for about three years. She says around half of her custom cake orders request the vintage, mega-piped look.

“It’s one of our most popular styles,” Burr says. “It just looks so clean, but so extra.”

And though the vintage-inspired cakes are popping up everywhere, each one is almost completely customizable, making them ideal for various party themes, milestones and celebrations.

Grab a fork. We’re breaking down these icing-slathered icons, down to the last crumb.

This article was originally published in the November 2025 issue of 225 Magazine.