PHOTOS COUTRESY OF THE SOURCE

A FEW DAYS AFTER MARIE DIFELICIANTONIO gave birth to her son, she stood on a street corner in Chinatown in the rain. After stumbling on a photo of fudgy, salt-flecked brownies while scrolling Instagram, the South Philly—based lifestyle and hospitality publicist was meeting Mercedes Brooks of Second Daughter Baking Co. for a handoff of the baked goods.

“I joke that it was my push present,” says DiFeliciantonio. “We ate them for a whole week and they were still moist at the last bite.”

Second Daughter, founded by Brooks and her sister, Rhonda Saltzman, emerged last November as an online bakery with rainbow-frosted, strawberry cream—layered cakes, ripe fruit—topped tarts and thick fudge brownies that have gained a cult following. Nowadays, the duo run their operation out of a kitchen in the Bok building, but they’re among the new crop of bakers relying on Instagram to market and sell their treats directly to hungry scrollers.

“ Every single time I finish baking and I stare at the end result, I always feel a sense of accomplishment, and it’s thrilling to see what I am capable of.” 

While selling directly to customers isn’t new, the past year-plus of the pandemic has prompted startup and veteran bakers in the Philly area to turn to social media—either to boost sales, boost mental health, or raise money for a good cause. Many traditional bakeries also changed their protocols due to the pandemic. They put their menus online and normalized low-contact sidewalk pickups, a trend that lent legitimacy to newbie Instagram-direct bakers. Plus, what a fitting platform for marketing the goods. Instagram specializes in pretty food photos that show off every glistening berry, frosting swirl and gooey caramel center.

“The amount of people you can reach is just amazing,” says Cote Tapia-Marmugi, who runs Mole Street Baker. The 36-year-old started baking cakes as a creative outlet. Tapia-Marmugi builds sugary towers of buttercream and vanilla, elaborately bedecked with edible flowers and unicorn horns. She takes custom orders, making cakes each month for birthdays, bar mitzvahs and more.

Jennifer Grimsley, the cake maven behind Sweet Tooth, adds that Instagram has been the perfect digital portfolio for her business. “It’s a one-stop-shop for consumers to view my work, find my website and contact me,” she says. “It has such a wide reach that has proven super helpful for growing my client base.”

While some, like Grimsley and Second Daughter’s Rhonda Saltzman, have restaurant experience, for many like Tapia-Marmugi, selling baked goods was a progression from home baking. What started as a creative outlet, posting photos and stories of the finished product, led to a real business.

Zaneta Phean, known as Leta, started as a hobby cook and baker. She used the social media platform as a fun way to show off her creations. However, soon after setting up a separate account under the moniker Leta’s Baking to display her work, she started getting DMs asking how to buy her baked goods. “After many requests, I finally decided to take orders,” she recalls. A full-time revenue analyst and new mom, Phean says there are plenty of challenges to juggling all three roles, “but every single time I finish baking and I stare at the end result, I always feel a sense of accomplishment, and it’s thrilling to see what I am capable of.”

For others, running an online bakery stemmed from something else. PJ Dziama (pronounced “jah-mah’’) started baking alongside her Filipina mother when she was a child and began selling baked goods at the start of the pandemic as a way to support the Black Lives Matter movement, which started gaining momentum around that time.

“I became restless with an intense urge to do something about the complex, deeply rooted issues our very own Philly neighbors were facing,” she says. Dziama signed up for Bakers Against Racism, the non-profit founded by Washington, D.C.—based Paola Velez, Willa Pelini and Rob Rubba. She wasn’t the only one. The org prompted some 2,000 bakers across five continents to fire up their ovens, collectively donating $2 million to Black Lives Matter and other social justice organizations. Some kept going. “Since that first June 2020 activation, I have not stopped,” says Dziama.

“Instagram allowed me to connect with other Philly foodies I wouldn’t have otherwise met during the pandemic,” says Dziama, who moved to the city from Buffalo, New York just a few months before Covid emerged. (Needless to say, a global pandemic has thwarted efforts for many to make friends in a new city.) But bonds are formed through baking. The baker mentioned how chef Mir Podheiser, formerly of Pumpkin restaurant, has helped with last-minute ingredient runs and donated the use of kitchen space. Tracy from Bacchus Market has lent her industrial-grade convection ovens, too. “Baking for good causes has made what was once a foreign place home to me,” she says.

Just a few months after kicking off their business, the Second Daughter duo moved out of their home kitchen to start baking in an industrial kitchen in the Bok building. But Instagram still plays a pivotal role in the business. After creating a version of one of their beloved brownies with a graham cracker and a pillowy peak of torched meringue on top, they posed the question to their audience in an Instagram story, “Do you guys want to see this on the forever menu?” They’re able to check analytics through the platform—shares, comments and click-through orders. But the proof is also in the pudding. They sold out in minutes.

WHERE TO SHOP

Follow these Philadelphia-area bakers on Instagram to feast your eyes on their photogenic treats—and maybe order up some new favorite desserts.

1. Mole Street Baker

@mole.street.baker

Cote Tapia-Marmugi sells savory Chilean specialties via the Kampar Kitchen pop-up, plus beautiful custom cakes and cupcakes. From rustic, barely-iced tiered numbers enveloped in flowers to first birthday cakes decked with rocket ships, dinosaurs and more, the baker goes all out on decoration.

2. Second Daughter Baking Co.

@seconddaughterbakingco

Besides their wildly popular brownies— which, somewhat impossibly, taste even better than they look on the shop’s Instagram feed—sisters Rhonda Saltzman and Mercedes Brooks offer ethereal cakes decorated with delicately spun sugar spirals and fresh flowers, plus specials like chocolate chunk cookies and fruit tarts. Order online and pickup at the Bok, or opt for local delivery.

3. Pjama Bakes

@pjama_bakes

PJ Dziama kicked off her baking pop-up when she joined the Bakers Against Racism’s activation last summer. Since then, the full-time designer has been selling ube beignets with coconut-cheesecake filling to benefit the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, Oreo truffle core cookies to benefit the Bethesda Project and peanut butter nutter cookies. The crispy-edged treats are topped with Nutter Butter pieces and salted blister peanuts— and sales of the cookies benefit Afghan women. Look out for more stuffed cookies, layered ice cream cakes and creative treats at future pop-ups.

4. Sweet Tooth

@sweettoothphl_

Former Zahav pastry chef Jennifer Grimsely has a particular affinity for making cakes—four-layered with gobs of homemade brownies, peanuts, potato chips and fruity pebbles, just for starters. But if you’re not looking for an entire cake, no problem. “I believe cake should be accessible without needing to commit to an entire cake, and there’s been a huge response to that,” she says. You can order slices online for pickup, or find them at spots like Biederman’s and HUDA. “My favorite cakes to make are the unexpected ones: literal cinnamon rolls in between cake layers? Brownies and cookie chunks? Marshmallow and peanuts in peanut butter cake? Done,” she says. “The crazier, the better.”

5. Moonflour Bake Shop

@moonflourbakeshop

Fill out a short form on Samantha Lam’s Instagram page, and days later a box of chocolate chip black sesame cookies, mini matcha and pandan pound cakes and cups of fluffy pandan banana pudding are delivered to your door. The baker also takes custom orders for lush floral initial-shaped cakes and delicate, masterfully- decorated sugar cookies.

6. Leta’s Baking

@letasbaking

In addition to shortbread cookie—layered durian banana pudding and crème brûlée tarts, Zaneta Phean, a.k.a. Leta, makes elaborate number and letter—shaped cakes. Often ordered by customers celebrating an event (a one-year anniversary, say, or a baby’s 100th day), the spongy layered cakes come in flavors like strawberry or Thai tea and are topped with gold-foiled macarons, bon bons and fresh flowers. “It’s so satisfying to see . . . how beautiful the end results are after decorating and putting everything together,” she says.

7. High Fidelity

@highfidelitybakery

Brady Hatin has cracked the code for making delicious baked goods that also happen to be both vegan and gluten free. Order donuts—$15 for a half dozen—in flavors like lemon hibiscus and chocolate-glazed, plus raspberry frangipane tarts, chocolate chip cookies and a roster of savory snacks like his popular tofu pot pie. Pickups are on Saturdays on East Passyunk Avenue.

8. Day by Day

@daybydayphilly

Instagram has helped home bakers foster their creative endeavors and reach a new audience, but the platform has also been a lifeline for some small businesses during the pandemic. Molly Barg started baking at her mom’s restaurant, Day by Day, in Rittenhouse nearly two decades ago. While indoor dining has been closed at the restaurant, they’re offering catering, boxed lunches and various baked goods directly to customers, as posted on Instagram. “Social media at Day by Day has never been our strong suit,” says Molly. “But the pandemic definitely pushed us to work on it.” Now, you can scroll their Instagram feed to see icing-soaked strawberry fritters and crumb-topped plum pies, and click through to order on their website.

9. New June Bakery

@newjunebakery

Order from a menu of artful fruit tarts, icing-covered morning buns, dense slices of chocolate cake and more, and your treats, made by baker Noelle Blizzard, will be ready each weekend. Local delivery or pickup from Fairmount.