This South Philly baker went viral with a burn-away cake that reveals a shirtless Jason Kelce

Of all the events that could have put Kaylyn Kahana’s South Philly bakery on the map, she never thought it’d be an Eagles-less Super Bowl and a shirtless Jason Kelce surrounded by flames.

Less than two weeks ago, when she tried the viral burn-away cake trend and posted a late-night Instagram, she thought that a flaming Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce cake might boost sales ahead of the big game.

But when the Kay Kay’s Bakery owner pulls an all-nighter Saturday into Sunday to decorate about 100 burn-away cakes, the vast majority of the designs will read: “There’s only one Kelce I’m watching this Super Bowl for.”

Customers hip to the trend can touch a flame to the middle of the cake to ignite the top layer of wafer paper, which will burn away, revealing the image of the shirtless elder Kelce celebrating his brother, Kansas City Chiefs’ star tight end and Swift’s boyfriend, at a recent playoff game in Buffalo.

“This took off so much that no one cares about Taylor Swift,” said Kahana, who charges $40 for a 6-inch burn-away cake or $65 for an 8-inch version.

Kahana typically has fewer than 10 Super Bowl-related orders and has never seen such demand for a single event in her nearly seven years in business at 19th and Ritner Streets. She stopped taking Super Bowl orders Wednesday but hopes to keep the burn-cake momentum going for other occasions.

The 34-year-old South Philly native is among the latest bakers to capitalize on the social media craze, which was ignited by Ontario-based baker Namaya Navaratnaranjah — known as cakesbynams on TikTok and her inspiration, Illinois cake artist Denise Steward, or denises_delights93.

Navaratnaranjah’s viral designs have racked up millions of views and feature Taylor Swift and the evolution of Pokemon character Charmander. Other popular burn-away cakes play on the “Burn Book” from the movie Mean Girls. They’ve also been used for gender reveals, proposals, and even divorce celebrations. (Bakers say customers seem to enjoy the idea of lighting their wedding photo on fire.)

After seeing the trend on TikTok, Erin Mitchell, 39, of Burlington Township, said she’s already looking for a burn-away cake for her 40th birthday in September. She wants one that reads something like “Goodbye 30s, hello 40s.”

While Kahana may now be the most well-known Philadelphia-area burn-away-cake baker, she isn’t the only one. Sweet Simplicity Cakes in Sicklerville and the Cake Boutique in Mullica Hill are among the other local bakeries that have started offering burning confections over the past few months.

“People have been asking for birthday-themed ones, Valentine’s ones, gender reveals, even ‘Will you marry me?’ ones,” said Stephanie Santiago, a 23-year-old baker who runs SimplySteph Cakery out of her Paulsboro home. Since offering the burn cakes beginning a couple months ago, the demand has “skyrocketed,” she said, from a couple orders a month to 10 to 15 orders a month of the 8-inch heart-shaped cakes, which sell for $175.

Burn-away cakes — and specifically Jason Kelce burn-away cakes — are the biggest thing ever to happen to Kay Kay’s, Kahana says.

“This is certainly a milestone,” she said. “I’m exhausted, but it’s the most surreal gratification. This is what I’ve worked so hard for.”

This moment feels especially gratifying because Kahana’s road to success was winding. While she always loved to bake, inspired by both her grandmothers, she was never formally taught. Thinking that a baking career would be difficult with no work-life balance, she studied communications at Pennsylvania State University and got a job in the field after graduation.

She fell back into baking slowly, with relatives asking her to bake cakes for weddings, birthdays, and other events. She started the business out of her parents’ home, then moved out on her own. In 2017, she got the opportunity to rent the 19th and Ritner storefront after a prior tenant, also a bakery, closed up shop. She has spent many late nights and early mornings there in the years since.

Tuesday, Jan. 30, was one of those late nights, one that ended up setting her business on fire.

Having seen the burn-away cakes on TikTok, Kahana said she was talking on the phone with her boyfriend about how she could jump in on the trend in her own way.

“I just didn’t want to copy someone else’s style,” she said. “My boyfriend was like, ‘Why don’t you focus on the Super Bowl?’ ”

The burn-away cakes are made like any other, just with an extra layer of flammable (and edible) sugar paper on top that is buttressed by icing.

Around 11 p.m., Kahana trudged down to the bakery from her apartment and decorated four burn-away cakes. They included the Jason Kelce one that went viral and another with red icing that reads “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me,” alluding to a moment that Swift confirmed her relationship with Travis Kelce. Kahana posted a couple videos to Instagram, with a caption letting customers know they could now buy burn-away cakes at Kay Kay’s, and went to bed.

When she woke up a few hours later, her phone was blowing up. The popular Word to the Wise podcast account had picked up her video, and thousands of people were liking and commenting. (More than 10,000 had liked the Word to the Wise post as of Friday.) Her sisters were texting her excitedly: She had officially gone viral.

For Kahana, “initially, it’s panic,” she said. “I get nervous when people are looking at my stuff.”

After staring at her phone for a while in disbelief, Kahana got to work. The past week and a half has been a blur, with orders pouring in and Kahana fitting appearances on local TV news in between all her baking.

A corkboard that hangs in the bakery is typically filled with order slips for several days. This week, she’s had to take it day by day. On Thursday, a large stack of handwritten Super Bowl orders sat in a folder.

At Kay Kay’s, Kahana is the only cake decorator, so the approximately 100 Super Bowl orders “might as well be a couple hundred,” she said.

To keep her cakes fresh for customers, Kahana said she doesn’t like to make anything more than 24 hours in advance. The cakes themselves will be baked earlier Saturday, and she will decorate them Saturday night into Sunday. Decorating the burn-away cakes usually takes her 15 to 20 minutes per cake.

“I haven’t done the math to make sure it’s physically possible to get these cakes done,” she said with a laugh.