Ilford sends gift boxes, Romford sends birthday cakes

Every town we deliver to has its own favourite cake, and our order book shows it clearly: Ilford orders the Cake Gift Box more than anything else, while Romford and Dagenham go for the classic Birthday Cake and Barking picks the Pistachio Milk Cake Tray. We looked at every order delivered to those four towns since January 2023 to see what each one really chooses.

None of this comes from a survey. These are the cakes we baked, boxed and drove out to front doors across East London and Essex, counted from our own order records. Here is what each town orders, our honest guess at why, and what we would suggest if you are planning a celebration there.

The map: where our cakes go since 2023

We counted orders placed with us from 1 January 2023 to 8 October 2026, grouped by the town written in the delivery address. Four towns lead by a long way:

• Ilford: 532 orders
• Romford: 386 orders
• Dagenham: 329 orders
• Barking: 215 orders

Chigwell (62) and Hornchurch (61) come next, then a long tail of places across Essex and East London. Two honest caveats. Many customers simply type "London" as their town, and collection orders have no delivery town at all, so the real numbers for each area are higher than these. And one order can include more than one cake, so the product counts below overlap a little. Treat every figure here as a minimum.

Still, the pattern is strong enough to be worth sharing. Each of the four big towns has a different number one, and the gap between towns is bigger than we expected when we started counting.

Shop birthday cakes → Our classic Birthday Cake starts at £32.99, with £4.99 delivery across East London and Essex. Pick your date at checkout.

Ilford: the gift box town

Ilford is our biggest town, and it does not order like anywhere else. The Cake Gift Box is the clear leader with 84 Ilford orders, followed by the School Cake Tray (61), the Pistachio Milk Cake Tray (51) and the Heart Cake (47). The classic Birthday Cake, which tops two other towns, sits down at 34.

Look at that list again and you will notice something: three of Ilford's top four are things you slice and share rather than a single decorated centrepiece. Add the Biscoff Milk Cake Tray (36), and Ilford has ordered more than 100 milk cake trays from us across pistachio, Biscoff and Oreo.

Our reading is that Ilford buys cake for the table, not just for the candles. A gift box of twelve slices in four flavours of your choosing works when lots of people are visiting, when you are taking something round to family, or when you want everyone to pick their own favourite. The gift box also has a free personal message option and a gift order setting, which makes it an easy thing to send to someone else's door.

If you are celebrating in Ilford, our Ilford cake delivery page has the details. Our suggestion, based on what your neighbours order: a gift box for the guests, plus a heart cake if there is a name to put in piping.

Romford: birthday cakes first

Romford is the most traditional of the four. The classic Birthday Cake leads with 55 orders, then the Cake Gift Box (45), the Heart Cake (43) and the Pistachio Milk Cake Tray (27). The Drip Birthday Cake and the School Cake Tray tie on 23 each.

When Romford orders from us, it is usually for a birthday, and it usually wants a proper round cake with a message on top. That suits us well, because a birthday cake is where our buttercream piping does most of the talking. We pipe every border and every message by hand, and customers can choose the colour and the words in the instructions box when they order.

Romford also orders more Sprinkle Birthday Cakes (11) than any of the other three towns, which fits the same picture: bright, classic, unmistakably a birthday.

For Romford parties, have a look at our Romford cake delivery page. If you are feeding a big group, a birthday cake for the candles and a gift box on the side is the pairing we see most often from Romford addresses.

Dagenham: birthday cakes and hearts, neck and neck

Dagenham is home for us, and it is the closest race in the data. The Birthday Cake has 40 Dagenham orders and the Heart Cake 39, one order apart. Behind them come the School Cake Tray (33), the Cake Gift Box (30), the Drip Birthday Cake (29) and the Pistachio Milk Cake Tray (28).

What stands out about Dagenham is how even it is. No single cake runs away with it. We think part of that is simply that Dagenham orders every kind of celebration from us, from school cake for a family Sunday to a heart cake for a milestone birthday, so the spread looks more like our whole menu than any other town.

Dagenham is also where collection by appointment makes most sense, since it is where we bake. If you would rather we bring it to you, delivery is the same £4.99 as everywhere else we cover.

Barking: milk cake country

Barking is the only one of the four big towns where a milk cake tray is the number one order. The Pistachio Milk Cake Tray leads with 39 Barking orders, ahead of the Cake Gift Box (30), the Birthday Cake (28), the Biscoff Milk Cake Tray (25) and the Heart Cake (23).

Put pistachio and Biscoff together and Barking has ordered 64 milk cake trays from us, more than twice as many as any single decorated cake. For a town of Barking's size in our order book, that is a remarkable share.

Milk cake is soft sponge soaked in sweetened milk, finished with cream and a topping, and served chilled straight from the tray. It is a dessert people grow up with in a lot of families, and our guess is that Barking simply knows what it likes. It also travels to a gathering with no fuss: lid on, into the fridge, cut into squares when everyone is ready.

Our Barking cake delivery page covers the area. If it is your first milk cake, pistachio is the one Barking would point you to.

What to order wherever you are celebrating

We do not think anyone should order a cake just because their postcode does. But the numbers do give a useful shortcut if you are stuck:

• Lots of guests, different tastes: a Cake Gift Box (from £21.99), the way Ilford does it.
• A classic birthday with candles and a name: the Birthday Cake (from £32.99), Romford's favourite.
• Something a bit special for one person: a Heart Cake (from £39.99), which Dagenham loves almost as much as the birthday cake.
• A dessert to share after a meal: a Pistachio Milk Cake Tray (from £23.99), Barking's number one.

Whatever you choose, it is baked to order for your date. Pick your delivery date and slot in the cart and the calendar shows what is open. Weekday deliveries run in the evening from 6:30pm to 10:30pm, Saturday is a full delivery day, and Sunday deliveries run from 12:30pm to 2:30pm.

We will keep watching how these patterns move. If Romford discovers milk cake or Barking falls for heart cakes, you will read about it here first.

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