528 heart cakes later: what the vintage heart cake trend taught us

Since January 2023 we have baked 528 of our classic Heart Cake, more than any other cake with a name on our menu, and 720 heart cakes once you count all 27 heart designs. That order book has taught us three things: the vintage heart trend peaked in 2024, it has not gone away, and the people still ordering hearts now want far more piping, bows and personality than they did when it started.

Magazines tell you the heart cake is having a moment. We can show you what that moment actually looked like from a family-run bakery in Dagenham, East London, one order at a time.

The number: 528 heart cakes since 2023

Our classic Heart Cake has been ordered 528 times since 1 January 2023. To put that in context, the next most ordered cakes on our menu over the same period are the Cake Gift Box at 489 orders and the Pistachio Milk Cake Tray at 448. A single heart shaped design has been ordered more often than any other single cake we make, including our best selling milk cake tray, and trays are what our name comes from.

Add in every other heart design we have offered, from the black bow cakes to the gender reveal hearts, and the total comes to 720 heart cake orders across 27 designs. Some of those designs have only been ordered once or twice. A handful, like the Heart Cake with Mini Hearts (30 orders) and the Vintage Bow Noir Heart Cake (28 orders), have become regulars.

So when we talk about the heart cake trend, we are not guessing. We are reading our own order sheet.

Shop vintage heart cakes → Our classic Heart Cake is £39.99, with £4.99 delivery across East London and Essex. Pick your date at checkout.

How the trend arrived on our order sheet

The Heart Cake went on our menu in October 2022, and for the first few months it barely moved. In the first quarter of 2023 we sold three heart cakes in total. In the second quarter, six.

Then the summer of 2023 happened. Between July and September that year, heart cake orders jumped to 36, and they kept climbing: 39 in the last quarter of 2023, then 74 in the first three months of 2024. The busiest quarter we have ever had for hearts was April to June 2024, with 82 orders.

Across whole years the shape is clear:

2023: 84 heart cake orders
2024: 308
2025: 203
2026 so far: 125 (to 6 October)

That jump from 84 to 308 in a single year is the trend arriving. It came from the vintage cake look that had been spreading online: heart shaped cakes, piped edges, retro lettering, cherries and bows. People saw it, and then they came looking for someone local who could pipe it.

What people ask for most: colours, bows, cherries, messages

Every heart cake order comes with a box where you can tell us the message, the colour and anything special. We read every one of those, and they say a lot about where the trend is now. In the 60 days to 6 October 2026, we took 26 heart cake orders. Here is what they asked for.

Their own colour. 16 of the 26 named a colour rather than taking the one in the photo. Four wanted the whole cake black, piping and all. Four went for blue, from light royal blue to deep midnight. Others asked for red, deep purple, baby pink, cream or a yellow and green combination for a mehndi.

Black accents. Even the lighter cakes leaned dark: white cakes with black lettering, black bows on the edge, an ivory heart finished with a black bow. If we had to name one colour of the trend in 2026, it would be black.

Short, cheeky messages. The writing on top is rarely a full sentence. It is an age, a name, or a two or three word in joke that only the birthday person will understand. Heart cakes have become the cake you buy a friend, not just the cake you buy a child.

The same small size. 21 of the 26 were the 6 inch size. Heart cakes are mostly for small gatherings, a birthday dinner, an anniversary, a girls' night, rather than a hall full of guests.

The filling. Of the 24 that chose a filling, 10 went for buttercream, 7 for strawberry jam, 6 for Biscoff sauce and 1 for chocolate ganache.

From simple heart to full Lambeth: how the style grew up

This is the part of the story we find most interesting, and it only shows up when you split the numbers.

In 2023, 76 of our 84 heart orders were the classic Heart Cake. That is about nine in ten. In 2024 it was still nearly nine in ten: 275 of 308. In 2025 the classic fell to 126 of 203, about six in ten. And in 2026 so far it is 51 of 125, about four in ten.

In other words, more than half of the heart cakes we bake now are not the simple heart. People are choosing the fuller designs: the Vintage Bow Noir Heart Cake (£74.99) with layered ivory piping and black satin bows, the Pink Lambeth Heart Bow Cake (£64.99), or the Cherry Heart Anniversary Cake (£59.99).

The difference is the piping. The classic heart has a shell border top and bottom and a message in the middle. A Lambeth design stacks shells, swags, scallops and ruffles in layers, so the sides of the cake have as much going on as the top. It takes far longer at the piping bag, which is why those designs cost more, and it is only possible because every cake we make is buttercream, never fondant.

We think this shift happened because the simple heart became familiar. Once everyone had seen one, the people who wanted something special started asking for more: more texture, a bow, cherries, pearls. The trend did not fade so much as it grew up. Bows in particular took off, and we wrote about that in our post on vintage bow cakes.

Is the trend over? What we are seeing in 2026

Honestly, the peak is behind us. Heart orders in 2025 were about a third lower than in 2024, and 2026 is running a little below 2025. Anyone who tells you heart cakes are bigger than ever is not looking at real orders.

But a trend that is over does not look like this. The classic Heart Cake is still the single most ordered cake on our menu over three and a half years. People are paying more per heart cake, not less, because they are choosing the detailed designs. And the requests are getting more personal, not more generic.

Our view is that the heart cake is settling into the same place the round birthday cake has always held: not a craze, just one of the shapes people reach for when they want a cake that looks like a celebration. The novelty has worn off and what is left is a style people genuinely like.

If we had to guess where it goes next, the signs are already in the order box. Darker colours, more black, bolder single colour cakes where the piping matches the base, and printed or patterned finishes like the leopard print heart below. The shape stays. The look keeps changing.

Choosing your heart cake

If you want the cake that started it all, the classic Heart Cake at £39.99 is still the one most people order. Tell us your colour and message in the box on the product page, and do not be shy about asking for something different from the photo. Most of our heart customers do.

If you want the look that most people are choosing in 2026, go for a fuller Lambeth design with bows or cherries. They take longer to pipe and cost more, but that is where the trend has moved, and they photograph beautifully.

Most heart cakes are ordered in the 6 inch size, which suits a small gathering. If you are feeding more people, the larger sizes are on the product page. Pick your delivery date and slot in the cart and the calendar shows what is open, or choose collection from Dagenham by appointment.

Frequently asked questions

Written by the Cake Trays Team, a family-run bakery in Dagenham, East London, baking celebration cakes to order at caketrays.co.uk.