I Tried NYC's Most Viral Cake Right Now, And I'm Here To Save You $11 And A Long Wait
Is the biggest food trend of 2026 worth the hype?
I've never seen a food trend blow up as much as Dot Cakes. If you aren't already familiar, let me explain.
The Dot Cakes is a bakery based in Roslyn, NY, known on Long Island for its B'nei Mitzvah and college acceptance cakes. It's now blown up on TikTok after people began posting themselves trying them at Butterfield Market, a specialty food store in Manhattan.
The Dot Cakes sold at Butterfield (you can also order them on The Dot Cakes' website) are individually portioned cake cups, with a thin layer of frosting, and a topping of colorful, circular sprinkles, aka "dots". The striking sprinkles, which completely cover the cake, are prime for social media virality.
Now, there are lines wrapped around the block at Butterfield, and people are racing to the store on restock days to get them before they run out. The store even had to institute a one-Dot-Cake-per-person policy.
But that's not all: now, the trend is reaching far beyond the New York metropolitan area. Around the world, people are making DIY Dot Cakes with cake mix, making Dot Cake lattes, and even "savory Dot Cakes", like putting pasta in ramekins and coating the top with Parmesan to mimic the Dot Cake structure.
Meanwhile, brands are having a frenzy. Aldi is carrying rainbow sprinkles for the first time in memory. Shake Shack's Innovation Kitchen sold a Dot Cake milkshake and sundae. Right before I began writing this article, I got a notification from the Instacart app asking me if I wanted to stock up on ingredients to make my own Dot Cakes. "No NYC line required," it said.
The kicker is, each Dot Cake cup is $11, which is making many people wonder, are they really that good? Or are they just pretty? I went to the source to find out.
Visually, the Dot Cakes are stunning, more so than you can even capture on camera. The colorful, circular sprinkles are distinct from other sprinkle cakes (or now, many of the DIY Dot Cakes) because they have no white sprinkles. The sprinkles also lay completely flush with the frosting, almost like they were glued on or applied in a single layer. You don't have to worry about any runaway sprinkles when you dip your spoon in.
I tried four flavors: Original White, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, and Red Velvet. And... they all tasted almost identical. They all use the same vanilla frosting, which, in my opinion, is a missed opportunity. There was perhaps a *whisper* of Chocolate flavor in the chocolate cake itself. The Chocolate Chip Dot Cake tasted the most different, but it was my least favorite, since the chocolate had an unusual, bitter, and overall low-quality taste.
Which brings me to my main point: I suspect these cakes are made from a mix. Is the cake light and fluffy? Yes. Do the sprinkles add a satisfying, slightly crunchy texture? Yes. Is the thin layer of frosting surprisingly the perfect amount? Also, yes. But both the cake and frosting have the unmistakable, artificial flavor of a boxed cake and canned frosting.
Here are the ingredients for the Classic White Cake Dot Cake, for reference, side by side with Betty Crocker's Classic White Cake, which are quite similar.
So, do Dot Cakes live up to the hype? I always think trying these types of trends is a fun experience, especially when you make it into an activity with friends. Like, "Remember the year we tried those viral Dot Cakes?" But in my opinion, waiting in a long line to buy an $11 cup of cake that tastes like boxed cake mix isn't worth it. You can make something equally (if not more) delicious at home.
