A woman has gone viral on TikTok for baking nostalgic cakes inspired by school lunches - including butterscotch tarts, custard, shortbread and iced sponges.
Becky Evans, 24, began her baking career over lockdown, making and delivering cakes to her friends and neighbours.
Eager to get her business up and running, she started a TikTok account, @beckysbakingstoke.
She posted a video of herself baking a chocolate crunch – a gooey and crunchy chocolate slice that most people remember from their primary school days.
Becky was thrilled by the response, and began her series, “School Dinner Recipes,” which has amassed nearly 15 million views on TikTok.
She entertains her 200k followers by posting recipes for nostalgic cakes, including butterscotch tarts, shortbread and iced sponge – even branching out to include chocolate and mint custards.
“This was just a random idea I had one morning,” said Becky.
“I woke up and didn’t have much to do that day, and normally, I’d just bake something fun for myself.
“I wanted to make an old school-style cake to have in the evening, and I thought I could film them for TikTok, and maybe even make a series of me making them.
“At the time, I only had about a hundred followers, so I didn’t think anyone would see it.
“It was insane. I posted the video and closed the app for a second, and when I went back on my phone, it had 11,000 views – which for me at the time was a lot.
“A few minutes later, I had hundreds of notifications, and the video was at hundreds of thousands of views.
“It was really exciting! I was texting my sister the whole time – we’d always made jokes about me being ‘TikTok famous,’ but I never thought it would actually happen!”
Becky’s most popular video is her classic sponge cake with white icing, sprinkles, and custard, which has a whopping 6.2 million views and over 2,000 comments reminiscing about their own primary school experience – and even requesting new treats for her to make.
Even classic British brands have joined in the fun – with ASDA’s official account commenting, “primary school cake is top tier TBF.”
Becky now hopes to grow her following even more – and has made the huge step of launching her own Etsy shop to sell her school-style treats.
“I’d always enjoyed baking, but over lockdown I was baking a lot more because I wasn’t working,” said Becky.
“People in the area started asking me to bake them things, so I made a lot for family and friends around that time.
“Last June, I decided to bite the bullet and register as a business.
“It’s been quite overwhelming at times! Before that first video went viral, I had just started my Etsy shop, and I had a couple of orders every so often.
“My website was linked on my TikTok, and then orders started flying in.
"I had hundreds of orders, and it’s just me doing everything, so it was quite wild trying to keep up with that!
“But he response has been really great. Naturally, you do get negative comments, but most people are really nice or asking questions.
“I even get messages telling me that people love the series and they’re excited to order something!”
Becky Evans, 24, began her baking career over lockdown, making and delivering cakes to her friends and neighbours.
Eager to get her business up and running, she started a TikTok account, @beckysbakingstoke.
She posted a video of herself baking a chocolate crunch – a gooey and crunchy chocolate slice that most people remember from their primary school days.
Becky was thrilled by the response, and began her series, “School Dinner Recipes,” which has amassed nearly 15 million views on TikTok.
She entertains her 200k followers by posting recipes for nostalgic cakes, including butterscotch tarts, shortbread and iced sponge – even branching out to include chocolate and mint custards.
“This was just a random idea I had one morning,” said Becky.
“I woke up and didn’t have much to do that day, and normally, I’d just bake something fun for myself.
“I wanted to make an old school-style cake to have in the evening, and I thought I could film them for TikTok, and maybe even make a series of me making them.
“At the time, I only had about a hundred followers, so I didn’t think anyone would see it.
“It was insane. I posted the video and closed the app for a second, and when I went back on my phone, it had 11,000 views – which for me at the time was a lot.
“A few minutes later, I had hundreds of notifications, and the video was at hundreds of thousands of views.
“It was really exciting! I was texting my sister the whole time – we’d always made jokes about me being ‘TikTok famous,’ but I never thought it would actually happen!”
Becky’s most popular video is her classic sponge cake with white icing, sprinkles, and custard, which has a whopping 6.2 million views and over 2,000 comments reminiscing about their own primary school experience – and even requesting new treats for her to make.
Even classic British brands have joined in the fun – with ASDA’s official account commenting, “primary school cake is top tier TBF.”
Becky now hopes to grow her following even more – and has made the huge step of launching her own Etsy shop to sell her school-style treats.
“I’d always enjoyed baking, but over lockdown I was baking a lot more because I wasn’t working,” said Becky.
“People in the area started asking me to bake them things, so I made a lot for family and friends around that time.
“Last June, I decided to bite the bullet and register as a business.
“It’s been quite overwhelming at times! Before that first video went viral, I had just started my Etsy shop, and I had a couple of orders every so often.
“My website was linked on my TikTok, and then orders started flying in.
"I had hundreds of orders, and it’s just me doing everything, so it was quite wild trying to keep up with that!
“But he response has been really great. Naturally, you do get negative comments, but most people are really nice or asking questions.
“I even get messages telling me that people love the series and they’re excited to order something!”
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FunTranscript
00:00 Welcome to day 10 of making school dinner recipes and today we're making chocolate school cake.
00:05 For anyone who isn't aware or may have forgotten, our website will be restocked at 8pm tonight,
00:10 so that's 8pm Wednesday the 4th of October. There will be limited stock available so order while you can.
00:16 I think one of my favourite desserts ever is chocolate cake. I don't think my school actually
00:21 served this one but I have had it so many times in my adult life. The best part about this series is
00:26 that I currently have pink, green and chocolate custard in the fridge. I've had a lot of really
00:31 nice messages from people saying that they love the series, that it's brought them back to their
00:35 childhood and it's so nice to hear so thank you for that. A few people have asked if the things
00:40 that I'm making on the series will be available to buy on the website and a couple of them will be.
00:44 A little bit of insider info about this video, I did actually bake this whole cake and realised
00:50 that I wasn't filming it so now I've got two full cakes in my house. It's definitely not something
00:54 to complain about but I'm sure you can imagine how I felt when I realised that my phone didn't
00:58 record a single second. Going forward the website's going to be restocked every few days, I don't know
01:04 exactly when but it'll just be when we run out. I'll also add some new and different things in
01:08 every restock so it's not the same every time. As always thank you to everyone and I so much
01:12 appreciate your support. If you'd like to keep up with our business and keep up with this series
01:17 then feel free to give me a follow because we are making a new recipe every single day.
01:22 Welcome to day four of making school dinner recipes and today we're making old school cake.
01:26 If I'm honest I think I've had this cake about three or four times in the last couple of weeks.
01:31 I've always just known it to be called school cake but I think I saw someone say sprinkle
01:35 cake as well. I think the names do depend on where you live and what generation you were in so it's
01:40 quite interesting to see. Quite a few people have messaged me to ask if I can do a pack with me
01:44 video of their orders from the website so if you'd like your order pack too then you can order on our
01:49 website beckysbaking.co.uk and I'll try to add it in a video for you. I've also had a few people
01:55 telling me to use a sieve. I'm never gonna buy a sieve because I never want to wash a sieve so I
02:00 am really sorry but if you want to use a sieve when you make it you absolutely can, I'm just
02:04 not gonna do that. It's so cool seeing the things that people do and don't like. Some people
02:09 absolutely love the chocolate concrete, other people are literally passing out at the thought
02:13 of eating something so hard. If I'm honest I'm not quite sure what size this tin is. I will try to
02:18 find out but I'm not quite sure and also with the icing I haven't measured this out I've just kind
02:24 of gone by where my heart takes me so I would advise to just kind of put water in a little bit
02:30 at a time. I prefer it thicker but if you like it a bit runnier then you can do it like that.
02:35 Like I say you don't have to do it how I've done it. You can also see how thick I've done it by how
02:39 much I just struggle to get it on this cake. It just took me ages to spread it out but I do prefer
02:45 it that texture. I think it's just better when it's runnier it's just kind of watery. As usual
02:50 thank you so very much for the support it's really appreciated. If you want to see some more recipes
02:54 like this I have a big massive list of all of your suggestions so please don't worry I am getting
03:00 through it. If you'd like to keep up we are making a new recipe every single day.