They say don’t play with fire, but these cakes give you permission to do just that. If you haven’t seen them pop up on your feed yet, aptly named “burn away cakes” are the hottest food trend going viral on TikTok. Essentially, one image on top of the cake is burned to reveal another, and people worldwide can’t get enough. Content creators and bakeries have been jumping on the global phenomena, making iterations of the fiery cake inspired by things like Mean Girls and Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

So who started the trend? After doing a bit of digging, it seems that the concept originated with Denise Steward, @denises_delights93 on TikTok, who created a burn away cake to usher in the new year. She’s since posted a tutorial on how to make one on her blog. After seeing the viral cake, TikTok creator @cakesbynams was also inspired and has gained a following from her own versions, including a double-layered Pokémon themed one.

Just like the millions of viewers, I too was fascinated by them. So what’s the trick?

I first reached out to our very own Food Network test kitchen to see if they had any insight. Recipe developer Amanda Neal says, “I don't know a ton about them except that it's made using wafer paper. Wafer paper is used in a lot of bakeries and made from potato starch, oil and water. It’s super malleable when steamed and introduced to water, but I’ve never seen it burned until now.”

I then spoke to Chef Nerwan Khalife, owner of family-run business Cakes by Nerwan in Astoria, Queens. The bakery is run by herself, her mom and sister who specialize in custom cakes and have racked up an impressive celebrity clientele list including Anna Wintour, Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna.

Since the burn away cake started trending, Nerwan’s seen an influx of orders come in, especially for Valentine’s Day. She even has a divorce cake coming up in March. “I think that's why it took off because you can literally customize it to anything you wanted. It’s very cool. It’s like a magic trick.”

It was actually Nerwan’s mom who first introduced her to the trend. “It’s funny. My mom came across it on TikTok late one night, and she was trying to explain it to me the next morning.” She was confused at first, especially because the video her mom showed her wasn’t even in English. But after seeing a couple more videos, Nerwan wasted no time and decided to try and recreate it herself. She first tried frosting sheets, and when those just disintegrated, she moved to wafer paper and realized that was it. “I did it the next morning. Then we posted it on Instagram, and we started getting the phone calls, influencers, everybody wanted it.”

So how does it work? The technique essentially requires a lot of layering, and the frosting piped around the edge is key.

Nerwan explains, “So we bake the cake, fill the cake, frost the outside of the cake, and then we put the image that we want on the bottom that would be revealed. Then we pipe one line of buttercream around the image and pipe another layer of buttercream on top of that layer of buttercream. So, it's two layers of buttercream. Then we put the wafer paper and decorate around that with a little bit of buttercream as well, so there is spacing between the two images. It’s basically just two layers altogether, three layers of icing, one image on the bottom and one image on the top. And then you burn the top image, and it exposes the second image.”

All parts of the cake are edible. The images are printed directly onto the wafer paper using food coloring. “You can eat the paper, but it has no flavor. It’s pretty much potato starch and rice. The paper on the bottom, the frosting sheet, that tastes like sugar,” she says.

If you want to get the best burn and image reveal, Nerwan shares a few tips. “We realized a science to it is putting it in the freezer or the fridge for 30 minutes. That creates an even bigger flame.”

To avoid any image fall out, burning it in the center is best. “I’ve been telling every client that picks it up, it's best to light it in the middle just so it trickles out. Just hold the lighter there for two to three seconds, and it’ll turn on. It’s pretty much like a regular birthday candle just super-sized.”

If you’re worried about the potential risk of burning your house down, Nerwan says the frosting around the edge acts like a natural extinguisher and puts out the flame once the wafer paper is done burning.

As we know, trends come and go so I was curious what she thought would be next. “We went from simple buttercream frosted cakes to naked cakes to more intricate cakes like sneaker cakes and purse cakes that you were able to pick up. Now we’re going into the vintage cakes and this. I feel like everybody likes it being interactive. So, I think next thing is definitely going to be something that's interactive, I just don't know what.”

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