Baked A Cake

TikTok star Dylan Hollis introduces Baking Yesteryear … a new fashioned cookbook for old time’s cake.

by Deon Brown

Gentles, and Ladymen …” The pandemic was no cakewalk (so to speak) but TikTok baker and social media personality B. Dylan Hollis managed to make everything look – well – easy as pie. During lockdown Hollis researched vintage cookbooks, making his first foray into baking on TikTok in April, 2020 with a Pork Cake (now with over 2 million views). Hilarious and handsome Hollis now has 9.9 million followers on TikTok. His double-entendres and innuendos are tops. (“Celery is like your parents: dirtier than you think.” “It’s horrible now, but I hope it turns out okay … like children.” “Looks like we got two fruitcakes here.”)

Someone’s in the kitchen with Dylan … So Hollis culled 101 heirloom goodies (and a couple of wild fails) in his forthcoming cookbook, Baking Yesteryear: the best recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s showcasing Cornflake Macaroons, Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake, Potato Chip Cookies, and more. Do you know the Muffin Man? Or the Cupcake Man? The Pie Man? ION does. Meet Dylan Hollis.

Ready to bake? Gotta use your fingies! Floof Powder! Moo Juice! Eggies! ‘Nilla! CIMMANIM! And FIYAH!

ION: Tell us about your cookbook, Baking Yesteryear.

B. Dylan Hollis: It’s been the object of my affection ever since I fell in love with baking. I wanted to be able to put words into the joys of exploring history through ingredients, pastries, and eating cake. You can read about history or watch movies, but to be able to replicate that which folks in yesteryear ate – for a quick second –you can put yourself in a 1942 living room. Baking Yesteryear is structured decade by decade right up through the 1980s.

I wanted an easy way to bring that into other people’s homes because, I can only do so much on camera and my personality – I’m a bit abrasive and a bit loud and I yell too much and that’s not for everybody – but to be able to write down and share these recipes was difficult; old cookbooks have no standard measurements and these things took great effort. The recipes wouldn’t even say to “bake the cake” or “at a low or moderate temperature,” or even what to bake it in. There was not fireless cookery yet, so keeping the coals at a given temperature and getting things to rise as with a layer cake would be incredibly special. Maybe a wedding would be the only time they’d have a cake in their life.

ION: This hobby stemmed from lockdown during the pandemic. Did you bake prior to that?

Dylan: No, not at all. I began baking during the quarantine – I had nothing else to do. I’ve always been a lover of yesteryear; I collected many trinkets and one was an old, absurd cookbook. I put two and two together, and I was on TikTok to cure boredom, and it was the perfect storm.

ION: Are there days where you bake just for yourself?

Dylan: Of course. For example, today I was feeling the need to bring spring into my home to defend against the snow. So I said, “Let’s just make a good ol’ Lemon Ice Box Pie.” Sometimes it’s a problem because I’ll bake on film and then I’ll bake for myself and I’ve got too much going on and then I need to send out my baked goods to friends and neighbors, but they like me for it.

ION: If you’re baking alone, do you narrate the recipe and process as if it were a TikTok?

Dylan: Not so much. Some things are perennial: I’ll forever have difficulty pronouncing ‘cinnamon’ correctly — I used to be able to, but through these videos, now it’s stuck. But no, for the sake of my voice and my larynx, I try not to narrate in my yell-y, shout-y manner.

ION: How much do you spend in ingredients monthly?

Dylan: Roughly? I had one month where it was nearly a grand. That was at the height of recipe testing for the cookbook. On average, I probably spend $500, $600 a month. That’s not including my own consumption. Most of that is nuts (which I’m partial to anyway.) For a lot of these old recipes, they loved hazelnuts and walnuts and they’re quite expensive.

ION: Have you made anything that initially you did not like and then tried it again later and thought, “This isn’t so bad after all”?

Dylan: You’re going to get the inside scoop here. When it comes to my reactions — they’re all genuine. I think it’s very easy for someone to tell “acting” when it comes with food and reaction, so I’ve never even attempted to like something which I hated or hate something which I liked. However, there was one recipe that didn’t do very well on TikTok, but it went by the name of “Poor Man’s Pie.” It’s simple, basically just heavy cream with a bit of flour mixed in to thicken it. Originally it did not sit well with me; it was a bit gelatinous, but I made it again because it came up quite often in old cookbooks so I made it again off camera and I came to like it. That was the one recipe I initially quite hated; I have since then reversed chorus.

ION: Have you been approached about your own baking TV show?

Dylan: There’s production teams and producers and everyone with lots of big ideas. When you have someone who’s strangely successful or pulls these things off on the internet, you’re approached with all sorts of wild ideas. Baking is a great love of mine and it’s completely consumed my life, so of course I would say, “Yes.” I would love to revive the oldschool, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s TV variety shows, and you bet your bottom dollar we’d have a baking segment. Much like my life, I’d try and keep it varied.

When it comes to Food Network and these folks, I haven’t the ego to think that I can come head-to-head with these people who bake. I’m sure you’ve seen towering croquembouches and 47 layer cakes, and that’s not what the average person bakes. We want to come home and have a chocolate mayonnaise cake. If folks who watch TV would love that, sure, but I like the quaint nature of that which I do.

ION: From Bermuda to Laramie, Wyoming … Bermuda’s population of 64,000. Laramie is half of that.

Dylan: Yes, and a whole lot bigger. For all intents and purposes I live in Bermuda, but I say I “haunt” Laramie. I grew up on an island so small – it’s a mile wide, and it’s quite claustrophobic. Not to mention when it comes to being a gay man, it’s a terrible, terrible place to be. Not when it comes to persecution, but just with marriage – it’s not legal. That’s why I sought America. We don’t have many years on this Earth, so I said, “Where can I go that is the complete opposite of this place?” and I landed on either Wyoming, Montana or Alaska. The best thing that ever happened to me is my time in the United States.

ION: Has fame spoiled Dylan Hollis?

Dylan: No, truthfully. You go to places like California and celebrities are put on a pedestal and deified. It’s an American creation. I wouldn’t consider myself famous. “Famous” is Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan. Having a lot of followers on TikTok is a few levels down, but no, it’s not spoiled me. I don’t see this as being more special than anything else. I don’t offer anything crucial; I offer entertainment and that’s a great privilege, but no, it’s certainly not spoiled me.

ION: Dylan, you’re stuck on a desert island with just three desserts, which do you choose?

Dylan: I would certainly have tiramisu. Number two would be a tall glass of rum raisin ice cream. And number three, to lighten things up, would be a Hummingbird Cake.

[A banana-pineapple and pecan spice cake of Jamaican origin. — ed.]

ION: Is there a secret about yourself that you would like to reveal to the world in ION Arizona?

Dylan: This is not the strangest thing, but I don’t like making pies. I can’t make a good pie pastry.

ION: A very wise man once said, “The main ingredient in pie pastry is doubt.” [From one of Hollis’s TikToks. — ed.)

Dylan: (Laughs) I wish I had more juicy secrets, honestly. Maybe if I didn’t have a book coming out I would tell you some different secrets, but we can stay with those for now.

ION: If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

Dylan: I would be able to snap my fingers and make a perfect meringue instantly, every time. I can’t stand beating egg whites stiff by hand, which means you need to bring out the beaters. I hate cleaning things up, I hate extra dishes, and I hate this

ION: You made blancmange once; I had no idea it would be just such so gelatinous. (“There’s no Jello-O in here, just the Dark Arts.”)

Dylan: I didn’t enjoy the blancmange, that’s alongside Spanish Creams – those desserts are very old. I found recipes that popped up fairly often across decades. One cookbook had this recipe for a boiled raisin cake, and then another recipe from 1902, and then a 1907 boiled raisin cake. I baked them all, take what I liked from some and left out what I didn’t like from others to create the best version.

ION: Dylan, you’re really making a mark in the LGBTQ and current pop cultural landscape.

Dylan: Well, thank you. When I was trying to find something to stick, as soon as I found this, it took off. It just so happens that what is popular is also that which I love greatly — which is baking.

Baking Yesteryear: the best recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s is Hollis’s unconventional cookbook for conventional ovens.

DK Publishing. $32 MSRP. Available July 25, 2023. Pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for about $21. Hardcover, 256 pp.

Follow Dylan on TikTok exclusively at B.DylanHollis and on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Imposters abound.