Baker Knocks Customer Who Rush-Ordered $70 Custom Cake, Then Never Picked It Up — or Paid the Balance (Exclusive)

• In August, baker Abi Caswell received a call from a customer who wanted to order an elaborate cake just three days before it was needed.
• The founder of BATTER bakery X NOLA in New Orleans spent more than an hour making the cake
• But when the customer didn’t come to collect the cake, Caswell, who often shares her baking videos online, posted about it on TikTok
• The video went viral, garnering more than 7 million views and 13,000 comments

When Abi Caswell received a call in August from a customer who wanted to order an elaborate cake just three days before it was needed, the baker sprang into action. The 6-inch double vanilla cake, with a blue and orange design, cost a total of $70 and took Caswell, founder of BATTER Bakery and X NOLA Bakery in New Orleans, more than an hour to make.

“It wasn’t easy to make because she chose very contrasting colors for the design — they didn’t go well together,” Caswell tells PEOPLE. “I had to be very careful because she wanted a smeared color design, and the colors would turn brown if they smeared together.”

“She also wanted the letters on the top hand-painted in gold, which always takes a lot of time and care,” adds the 29-year-old.

Abi Caswell decorates a cake for a customer.

Abi Caswell

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The morning the customer was supposed to pick up the cake, Caswell explains she received a call asking for a refund of the deposit. She answered the customer “no”, because it was the morning of the pickup and the cake was already baked.

Instead, Caswell offered an amicable split. She explained that it was fine if the customer no longer wanted the cake, acknowledging that things happen. Since she hadn’t iced it yet, she suggested she just not ice it so the customer wouldn’t have to pay full price.

At that point, the customer told Caswell to freeze it and promised to pick it up that afternoon.

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“She called later that evening to make sure the cake was fully decorated and ready for pickup,” says Caswell. – We called her several times to check if something had happened or if she still intended to call, but she would answer the phone and then hang up on us.

“It sat in our fridge for a few days over the weekend and into Monday of the following week, waiting for her to pick it up,” Caswell says. “By the time we realized he wasn’t planning to collect the cake, as the party was probably already over, it was too late to salvage the cake and decorate it for resale.”

Abi Caswell holds a picture of the inspiration for the cake.

Abi Caswell

Frustrated by the situation, Caswell, who often shares videos of herself baking online, posted about it on TikTok. In the video, she explained how the customer still owes her $55 for the cake. She originally paid $25 as half of the base price ($50) before adding extra gold and more colors.

She admits that she was upset at the time and now “regrets it a little” because it was unusual for her to express her irritation towards a customer. But when the video went viral, garnering more than 7 million views and 13,000 comments, she realized that many people thought the customer’s behavior was completely inappropriate.

“It was nice to see so many people who understood how damaging it is to do something like this to a small company and they understood my frustration,” she says.

“A lot of people wanted me to destroy this lady’s credit because of the cake! Or give them her name and phone number,” he continues. “The internet is wild. I would just never do any of those things; I hope the lady saw the video and realized what she did was wrong. That would be good enough for me – if she doesn’t do it to anyone again.”

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Caswell adds that, prior to this experience, nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

“It was disheartening because we make all our cakes to order and put so much time and effort into them,” she says. “It was also sad because this is a person in our community who decided to hurt a small business.”

Her advice to other bakers facing similar situations? “Don’t let something like this upset you for long. Take a day to be sad about it, maybe vent to your friends (or TikTok), then move on. Don’t let the 1% of people who don’t know what to do get to you! Focus to the 99% who are happy to support your business!”

“I hope people realize that they can do anything they want if they’re willing to work really hard and take the good with the bad,” she adds. “I hope they find some humor in the unexpected; even if it’s a rude customer. Cake isn’t that serious after all!”

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Source: HIS Education