Daughters Baking (Birmingham)
The Maker: Mallory Webb
Mallory Webb sees perfection in the imperfect.
The Birmingham pastry chef and owner of Daughters Baking makes cakes with exposed edges. That means rather than covering a cake with icing, she layers flavors and reveals the cake in those layers.
It has become a popular style and, in keeping with Webb’s faith, has an inner beauty that shines through with the help of its creator.
Webb learned to make the naked cakes from the “Momofuku Milk Bar” cookbook by pastry chef Christina Tosi.
“That’s where I learned the technique,” she said. “(Tosi) has been my inspiration for the last several years.”
Daughters Baking is an Alabama Maker finding beauty in naked cakes from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
Webb came to Birmingham from Indianapolis to attend Samford University. She pursued a degree in sociology but soon realized she connected more with baking than anything in the curriculum. After spending a few years as a pastry chef at a Birmingham restaurant, Webb decided to turn her side business of making cakes into her own company.
That company took its name from Webb’s Instagram account.
“I picked that word (daughters) to show my relationship with God,” Webb said. “Everything was taken, and so I just wrote ‘Daughters Baking’ and that just stuck. I tried to change the name (of the business) but that’s what people knew me by.”
Webb’s menu of cakes and cookies regularly changes. She currently produces nine flavors of cakes and two flavors of cookies. Her best-selling cakes are blueberry lemon – layered with blueberry cake, cheesecake, lemon butter cream and white chocolate crumbs – and a traditional wedding cake but with sprinkles.
“It has been crazy, just never thought I would own a business, but I have had tons of help, learned so much and learned that I am capable of so much more,” Webb said.
Daughters Baking
The product: Made-from-scratch exposed-edge cakes and cookies.
Take home: 3-inch cookies and cream minicake, which serves two to four people ($18).
Daughters Baking can be found online and on Facebook and Instagram.
