Toilet Paper Cakes Are the Baking Trend Only the COVID-19 Crisis Could Create

When the COVID-19 outbreak struck, toilet paper was one of the first things to be panic-bought—and for obvious reasons: This whole situation stinks without you personally adding to it. Meanwhile, other things have been a harder sell—like cakes—because any good prepper knows that a cake wastes valuable space that could be taken up by powdered milk and canned ham. But what if the cake was the toilet paper?!

As if the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t made the world weird enough already, a bizarre new trend has emerged that is extremely fitting for the times: cakes that look like rolls of toilet paper. As the site The Takeout brought to our attention, at least two stores in two different parts of the world have been selling cakes inspired by the bathroom. Schurener Backparadies in Dortmund, Germany, is baking 200 “rolls” per day to keep up with demand for these not-particularly-appetizing desserts, according to The Local.

And spotted at a grocery store in Springfield, Illinois: yup, also toilet paper cakes. However, as is often the case at grocery bakeries versus pastry shops, the results are not as inspired as the ones being churned out by the independent German bakery. In Dortmund, the edge of the roll flops down and the quilting is clear. In Springfield, shoppers are getting little more than a sugary round cylinder.

But regardless of where you live, you should be limiting your trips out of the house—especially for purchases as frivolous as toilet paper cake. Plus, you have way too much free time at home. So what about baking your own toilet paper cakes? Because, of course, that’s very possible, too.

Plenty of YouTube tutorials have been uploaded in the past couple weeks showing off how to make your own TP cakes. The Takeout found two: Sugar High Score and Frenchies Bakery. And then thanks to the beauty of YouTube’s algorithms (yes, the same wonderful algorithm that’s finding my child a never-ending stream of Lego videos allowing me to write this article!), I was quickly recommended some more from places like Stacey Cakes and Bakeking TV Cake Channel.

So would a toilet paper cake make you feel better about your current situation? That’s a personal question only you can answer. However, you can only post so many pics of what your kids are doing in isolation before your followers lose interest. Might as well mix up the feed a bit.