This bakery's fruit-shaped cakes have taken Tucson by storm

Wild.

That’s the only way Tricia Olvera could describe the pop-up event she held back in July.

On a particularly hot afternoon, a line wrapped around Olvera’s house and poured out onto the street. Hundreds of people eagerly waited for a chance to try a cake they’d seen while scrolling their TikTok feeds.

In about two hours, everything Olvera had baked was gone. The apple, mango and strawberry-shaped mousse cakes disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Once a month, our neighborhood does a food truck roundup at our park, so I planned it alongside of that, thinking, 'oh, the neighbors will come by on their way to the park,' because that's usually what happens,” Olvera said. “I was not expecting what happened. It was a lot. There were a lot of people, it was wild.”

To think, all this chaos stemmed from one video on social media.

Olvera’s fruit-shaped mousse cakes are one of the Tucson foods that have gone viral on social media. All it takes is for one user profile to post a video raving about a drink or a baked good for the masses to descend on the business and change its trajectory. 

We’ve seen it with Chez Peachy, 501 N. Sixth Ave., which has a line out the door on a daily basis thanks to the videos its creator posts about her gooey cinnamon rolls.

Recently, the small Japanese café and bakery Okashi, at 732 N. Stone Ave., has been booming with curious customers thanks to the love it received on social media. You now have to arrive promptly at 9 a.m. to ensure you get a canelé.

Now, Olvera and her cakes are getting the same viral treatment.

Olvera, a lifelong baker, had run other cottage bakeries in the past, but decided to take a break about two years ago. Back in May, she decided to grab the whisk and began baking again, starting Crescent Moon Cottage Bakery out of her home kitchen in Tucson.

This time, she decided to add an item to her menu that changed it all: fruit-shaped mousse cakes.

To make these coveted cakes, Olvera combines freshly made whipped cream and soft cake together, putting it in whatever fruit shape she wants. Once it’s taken the shape of a blueberry or apple, she covers it in candy melts and decorates it to look just like the fruit.

This process leaves you with a cake that gives you a satisfying, audible crunch followed by the decadent, fluffy flavors of the cake and whipped cream.

Any fruit you can think of, she’s done. She has a banana mousse cake, filled with banana compote, caramel and hazelnut cake; a cherry mousse cake, made with cherry mousse, cherry compote and cherry cake; and mango, a fan favorite that features mango mousse, mango compote and mango nectar-soaked almond cake.

She even has a coffee bean-shaped cake that is filled with sweetened mascarpone mousse and scratch-made ladyfingers that are soaked in a sweetened espresso syrup.

People loved these quirky cakes, but things really exploded in June. An Instagram user who goes by “wholelottazay” posted a video about trying the mousse cakes. Not only did he give the cakes rave reviews, but his video got more than 30,000 likes.

A few days later, Christa Lebron, the owner of Chez Peachy, made her own social media video review, giving Olvera high praise.

“They were popular, but not as many people knew about them until wholelottazay’s video,” Olvera said. “My bakery really took off after that. Then Chez Peachy did a video about it, and it was even more wild after that.”

Orders came pouring in, placed through her website, crescentmooncottagebakery.com. One week, Olvera had to make 400 of the fruit-shaped cakes.

“It was surprising and overwhelming to keep up with the amount of orders coming in. Like right now, I'm still sold out for the summer season,” she said in a recent interview.

Lucky for us, Olvera is back up and taking October orders, according to her website. It may be even harder to get your hands on a strawberry mousse cake than a Harry Styles ticket.

A video on Instagram changed Olvera’s life and we are thankful these food influencers introduced us to the scrumptious desserts featured at Crescent Moon Cottage Bakery.