Detroit Bakeries Celebrate The Lions' Playoff Push
The Detroit Lions are aiming for the Super Bowl, and Detroit businesses are behind them.
After decades of dismal seasons, the Detroit Lions are one playoff win away from the Super Bowl. Long-starved fans are jubilant, and bakeries around the area are joining in the celebration.
These shops are rendering the Lions in sugary confections decorated in the team's colors of Honolulu Blue and silver (or white, depending on the ingredients on hand). The treats bear the team's leaping lion logo, football markings, and, in some cases, just a lot of sprinkles. Of course, customers love them.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan branch of Luca Pastry sold 800 Lions-themed cupcakes last weekend, when the Lions beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to reach the NFC Championship. Another 400 cupcakes were sold at the bakery's branch a few miles away in Canton, Michigan.
"They're selling like crazy," manager Sara Leach said. Some of the cupcakes have featured an edible fondant image of star quarterback Jared Goff, and others read "Grit," which has become the team's watchword. Cupcakes with blue and white sprinkles, cake pops with blue frosting, and blue macaroons have also been on offer; technically, the macaroons are birthday cake flavored, but are representing the Lions for the time being.
The Lions treats follow the bakery's phenomenally successful cupcake special that honored the University of Michigan football team's Rose Bowl bid and its victory in the College Football Championship. The $3 cupcakes were iced with the school's Block M and red roses.
Other bakeries are going even further as the Lions make a play for the Super Bowl. Heritage Bakery in suburban Livonia, Michigan gave out a free glazed doughnut to every customer during daylight hours Monday in honor of the Lions' win on Sunday. "Good morning, Lions fans!" the business declared on its Facebook page last week. "Everybody else doesn't matter."
Heritage has sold doughnuts covered in blue and white sprinkles, as well as those topped with green frosting "grass' and a miniature football. It also has offered chocolate eclairs decorated with white icing laces, and full-sized layer cakes with blue and white icing that read "Go Lions 2024."
A few miles away, in Garden City, Michigan, Villa Bakery is turning out hundreds of football-themed versions of its signature sweet, Bumpity Cake. It has chocolate cake, chocolate icing, and tunnels of vanilla filling, covered with more chocolate. It echoes the more famous Bumpy Cake sold by Sanders, whose hot fudge sauce recently returned to stores after a lengthy absence.
Villa's full-sized Bumpity Cakes are decorated with either green or white piping, blue and white sprinkles, and a chocolate football in the center. Along with Lions-themed eclairs and doughnuts, Villa also sells Lions cannoli. They're dipped in chocolate, decorated with blue and white sprinkles at each end, and scored with white icing to look like a football.
Meanwhile, Detroit's players have an incentive to win the Super Bowl: Villa Bakery owner Candy VanLue says on Facebook that she may offer them "all you can eat pizza breads [another Villa specialty] and Bumpity Cake!"