Cake Boi
UPDATE: This business’ location has changed.
To quote, if we may, Del the Funky Homosapien: Life is a blast when you know what you’re doing. And one thing Khayri Ayers knows with great authority is making cake, putting playful spins on the craft at his bakery, CakeBoi.
The 28-year-old recently celebrated his Bed-Stuy business’ one-year anniversary, but Ayers has been serving the neighborhood for more than a decade, baking for PTA meetings, birthday parties and community events. Even the CakeBoi name goes back to high school, when the basketball coach mocked him for bringing in treats for his friends. “Eventually everybody at school started calling me Cake Boi,” says Ayers. “And it got kind of cool.”
We see eye to eye on most things here at Black-Owned Brooklyn. Yet while Glenn is Team Pie, Cynthia’s an enthusiastic member of Team Cake. However, we agree that the offerings at CakeBoi are delightful. Served by the enormous slice, the cake is incredibly moist. Bakeries can be a gamble, but not once have we encountered a dry bite here.
Ayers learned to bake as a kid from his grandmother and perfected his skills under the tutelage of his father. Today he serves roughly 10 flavors daily at CakeBoi — a rotating lineup of classics like chocolate, funfetti and red velvet, plus fresh takes like vanilla mocha, blueberry and key lime — with the best sellers being coconut-pineapple and strawberry blonde. We’re also fans of the white chocolate-flavored blue velvet and the carrot cake, prepared simply without nuts or raisins; just four layers of spiced cake and whipped cream cheese frosting.
“I’m young, so I’m hip to what the next generation is doing.”
“Your Favorite Baker’s Favorite Baker” greets you from behind the CakeBoi counter in black graffiti tag lettering. There’s a platter of jumbo-sized sugar cookies imprinted with Biggie’s face (we hear Eazy-E versions are sometimes available), and the refrigerator holds layers of cake and frosting in Mason jars labeled with Tupac stickers.
“I’m young, so I’m hip to what the next generation is doing,” Ayers says of the bakery’s hip-hop accents. But his desserts, from custom special-occasion cakes to fluffy cinnamon rolls, supply a satisfying sugar rush at any age.
New Location: 675 Nostrand Ave., 718-513-0595, CakeBoi on Instagram
