There are many home bakeries operating under the Texas Cottage Food Law in South Texas. But Crabby Cakes in Portland, near Corpus Christi, recently separated itself from the pack with an unusual Valentine’s Day cake inspired by horror films.
On Jan. 28, a video of a cake that looked exactly like a human heart appeared on Crabby Cakes’ Facebook page. Within a couple days, it had a few hundred thousand views. The initial surge was largely due to horror film fans, who shared the post in Facebook groups dedicated to the genre. But less than a week later, the video of the human heart cake had over a million views.
Crabby Cakes owner Jessica Wolfe says she has started getting calls from people all over Texas, including Houston and Dallas, who are willing to drive hours for one of her organ cakes. Wolfe has also had people calling her from all over the country, although she cannot ship cakes out of state.
Wolfe launched Crabby Cakes in 2013 when she was 20 years old, and it was just another local home bakery until last week. When reached by phone, Wolfe was still stunned about the video going viral and mentioned that her business has never been written about before.
When asked if she is a fan of horror films, Wolfe responds, “Yeah, of course!” She name-checks the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises and mentions visiting places where scenes were shot for Texas Chainsaw Massacre. “I love horror,” she says. “There is a lot more to do artistically with that sort of stuff.”
Wolfe grew up obsessed with slasher flicks and enjoyed sculpting and painting, but just recently applied these interests to cakemaking.
“I was trying to do something different for Valentine’s Day, cake-wise,” she says. “And I had some cake left over from the orders that weekend. People were either going to love it or hate it.”
So instead of making a heart-shaped cake, she made a cake that looks like a human heart. Now her phone is blowing up with people who want to buy one of her scary cakes for Valentine’s Day instead of a box of chocolates.
“I was not expecting that!” she says. “But I would love to make cakes like that all the time.”
It looks like Wolfe might get her wish. But the calls are not just coming from fans of horror films.
“We have a lot of people ordering cakes like that,” Wolfe says. “But they are asking for a lot of different organs. Some of them are transplant patients. And nurses love them.”
Wolfe was glad that other fans of horror films liked her work, but she is really surprised to be getting so many calls from people in the health care industry. “Nurses, doctor’s offices, and graduates want the hearts,” she says. “But they also want livers, kidneys and lungs.”
Carefully sculpted of red velvet cake and made with marshmallow fondant, the heart cakes take significantly more time than Wolfe’s other work. It costs $70 and feeds about five.
For more information, e-mail crabbycakes2013@yahoo.com or go to Facebook.com/CrabbyCakes2013/.
