Daisy Cakes adds another level of sweetness after Shark Tank success
More than a dozen years have passed since Kim Nelson jumped into the Shark Tank with vicious investors. “I was getting nervous standing in front of those doors,” she recalls of taping the ABC show. “Then, when you get there, you have to just stand for two minutes, and the sharks are staring a hole through you the entire time.” The budding entrepreneur started her pitch, and as the water bloodied, Barbara Corcoran threw her a lifeline: an offer to help her sell her family’s fabulous cakes. To date, Daisy Cakes has iced more than $11 million in sales and Nelson just landed the biggest deal yet—selling the business to a longtime, devoted employee. But we’re adding eggs before sifting the flour. Let’s review her recipe for success.
Daisy Cakes Recipe for Success
Prep
As a young girl in Spartanburg, Nelson came together with her family over food. “I grew up with a love and appreciation for food,” the Dorman High grad explains. “We’d gather for Sunday dinners in Union. It was very communal, very satisfying and nurturing.” Recipes were handed down from one generation to the next, and although she doesn’t have a strong sweet tooth, she sold her first cake at the age of ten. “It was a yellow cake with chocolate icing,” she shares with a smile. “My mom and I had always dabbled in cakes, using fresh ingredients.”
After majoring in history at Wofford University, Nelson was catering, but the long hours and complex menus were taking the joy out of cooking. “Mom and I put our heads together and said, ‘Let’s figure out a way to bake and ship cakes.’ It was like coming full circle and easier to do just cakes.” Not wanting to be confined to Spartanburg, the drizzling duo spread the seeds of Daisy Cakes at holiday shows as far away as Louisiana.
Blend
Kim had never heard of Shark Tank when a friend suggested she apply to the show. Partnering with Corcoran folded in nationwide sales with a lifelong friendship. “Hands down, she was the right shark for me,” Nelson confides. “She understood the challenges I had, because I still had kids at home. The generosity and understanding that came from her being a mom and a working woman was wonderful.”
Over the next decade, Daisy Cakes would produce an average 16,000 cakes a year, using bakeries from Savannah to the Bronx to Las Vegas. In the end, Nelson brought production back to her commercial kitchen in Pauline, where she used her mom’s original, enamel pot to make her famous lemon curd. “We can ensure quality this way,” she says. “It’s still the same family recipes that mom and I tweaked a bit, many from my Great Aunt Daisy. She was the real baker in the family.”
Icing
Every baker knows the perfect time to pull a cake from the oven. Nelson recognized it in 2022, when her mom fell, broke her hip, and passed away. “I’m an only child,” Nelson says. “It was awful. I kept working, but my heart wasn’t it. Mom and I had done everything together.” Simultaneously, a surprise ingredient hit the counter—Nelson became a grandma.
She sold the business to the one person she could trust with her family’s treasured recipes: Marshall Langley. “He started working here when he was 15,” she reveals. “His integrity is unmatchable. He loves these cakes as much as I do.”
After handing over the bakery keys in August, Nelson has been cooking up new fun with her 17-month-old grandson. “We make biscuits together and pumpkin pancakes. I get to carry on how I grew up and pass it on to him. And I know Daisy Cakes will stay the same in Marshall’s hands. I gave him everything . . . except my mom’s enamel pot. He has to get his own.”
You can purchase Daisy Cakes through Goldbelly.com, or by driving out to Pauline (around 45 minutes). Nelson recommends ordering at least one week ahead of pick-up, as favorite flavors sell out. Daisy Cake Minikins can be found in vending machines at various airports. Look for one soon at GSP.
Daisy Cakes Recipe
Kim’s Pumpkin Poundcake
Makes one 10-inch cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup shortening
- 3 large eggs
- 2 cups mashed, cooked pumpkin (or one 15 oz can)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Beat sugar and shortening at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, pumpkin and vanilla, beating until blended.
- Combine flour and next seven ingredients and gradually add to pumpkin mixture, beating until blended. Stir in pecans.
- Pour into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan.
- Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 300°F degrees. Bake one hour and 20 minutes.
