A Michigan bakery’s attempt at an April Fool’s joke backfired (just a bit) after customers began requesting the hideous cake they had jokingly advertised on social media.
Homestead Kitchen Artisan Cakery, in Westland, Michigan, specializes in wedding cakes and other treats like cinnamon rolls, cookies and cupcakes. And at different times of the year, the business also offers seasonal desserts, such as a spring cake designed to look like a stump, or a rabbit-eared bunny cake.
Just days before Easter, however, the bakery took to Instagram to tease a holiday-themed “lamb cake” — albeit a rather off-putting cake they never actually intended to sell.
The image of the fictional offering — created using AI — depicted a bug-eyed cake in the vague shape of a buck-toothed lamb, covered with globs of brownish-gray frosting fleece.
It was, admittedly, a “creepy” image, the bake shop later admitted.
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“Most people knew right away that it was a joke, especially our followers,” Trina Staats of Homestead Kitchen told SavorNation. “They knew we take cake art very seriously and create high quality designs.”
“When the post began going viral and “the local community started seeing it in their feed, we began to get some negative reactions,” she said.
The next day, Trina and Homestead Kitchen posted an explanation for the previous day’s post in response to “messages of concern,” clarifying the prank was simply an April Fool’s joke, and that the bakery’s “whimsy” is not meant as any kind of “attack on Christianity.” The bakery also shared an image of the actual lamb-shaped cake they offered for Easter, with a completely innocuous design.
Despite this, Homestead Kitchen actually started getting requests for the much uglier version. Staats said she “leaned into the demand” by creating an alternate version of the shop’s lamb cake — one that more closely resembled the grayish, bug-eyed treat from her AI image.
“We had several orders placed and others were lucky to score one from the case. Some customers came to the store looking for them and were disappointed when we sold out,” she said, adding that she even received international orders for the less-appealing cake. “I had no idea it would become a viral sensation and was not prepared for the demand.”
Staats, on Instagram, later thanked her “weird” clientele for their support and sense of humor, and promised to “resurrect” the ugly lamb cake in 2027.
“Many customers are telling us they want one for next Easter,” she told SavorNation. “We’ll be better prepared next time.”
