‘YOU COULDN’T ASK FOR A BETTER BLESSING’
HARDCORE SWEET’S RECENT NETFLIX EXPOSURE BOOSTS CUSTOM CAKE BIZ DURING PANDEMIC
Watertown’s own Hardcore Sweet recently found its way to many of our screens when the bakery’s owners, Jeremy and Nicole Braddock, competed in the “Junk Foodie” episode of Netflix’s third season of “Sugar Rush: Extra Sweet.”
In the baking competition hosted by Hunter March, the Braddocks competed for baking glory and a $10,000 prize from judges Candace Nelson and Adriano Zumbo and guest judge comedian Fortune Feimster. While the couple competed in all three rounds creating junk food inspired cupcakes, confections and a towering food truck cake they just missed the mark when their pinata cake didn’t have the desired oomph with its explosion.
Jeremy said he “felt good” about how they did in the show, but admitted that he wishes they used a candy with more of a coating like M&Ms or Skittles so the candy would have “exploded more.”
He said they knew that they weren’t going to win when the cake didn’t explode when sliced. “I made it to the end and it was an amazing show,” he said.
“It’s always awesome competing on these shows. It’s a little nerve wracking but it’s not my first time so I’m kind of used to it,” Jeremy said. “It’s always the butterflies in your stomach when you’re gonna compete; you’re running around while the time clock is going [and] you have to perform while thinking under pressure.”
Appearing on “Sugar Rush” wasn’t the Braddock’s first time on television, Jeremy said the couple have competed on baking shows every year since 2013, when they won a Halloween episode of “Cupcake Wars.”
“That’s what started this whole thing,” he said. The couple has also competed on “Cake Wars,” “Sugar Showdown” and “Winner Cake All.” Jeremy said he and his family sat down and watched the episode when it aired and that it’s funny hearing what the show chooses to include in the episode. “You spend hours and hours filming, so you don’t know what they’re going to put on TV and it’s filmed so far in advance you just forget what you said and what you did. It’s exciting to see it all come to life.”
Jeremy said they filmed their “Sugar Rush” episode in February right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, leading to the lockdown in mid-March.
“We had just missed the whole scare with travel and lockdowns. We were very lucky to get in and film that,” he said.
Despite not winning the episode, Jeremy said Hardcore Sweet has seen a “100 percent” uptick in business since the episode aired on Netflix.
“It’s been phenomenal, you couldn’t ask for a better blessing during a pandemic. We’ve never experienced anything like this, so for that to air in the middle of a pandemic and bring in new families and business that wouldn’t have necessarily walked through our bakery, it helped,” he said. “I can’t even thank them enough.”
Since being on the show Jeremy said Hardcore Sweet has received calls for a number of custom cakes, including a “gravity defying” cake with a box of M&Ms being poured down onto the cake. “We’ve been getting a lot of small custom cakes for smaller parties because people aren’t gathering, but we’ve been getting a lot of them. It’s been helping our custom cake business.”
Hardcore Sweet isn’t a simple doily decored bakery. “We are definitely not your typical run of the mill bakery. We are out-ofthe-box, the crazier the better,” he said. “We have creative minds here and our staff is super talented. We’re all amazing dec
SINCE BEING ON THE SHOW HARDCORE SWEET HAS RECEIVED CALLS FOR A NUMBER OF CUSTOM CAKES, INCLUDING A “GRAVITY DEFYING” CAKE WITH A BOX OF M&MS BEING POURED DOWN ONTO THE CAKE.
orators and I’m not saying we don’t do basic cakes, because you can come here and get a simple cake with a ‘happy birthday’ on it, but we push the custom cakes business quite a bit through our picture sharing and our social media accounts.”
Jeremy said that he and Nicole love to come up with celebrity and music inspired cakes and added that they have made cakes for such celebrities as Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Tony Orlando, Alton Brown, Robert Irvine and Deathcab for Cutie.
Even though he’s made cakes for stars, Jeremy said Hardcore Sweet is willing to make custom cakes of any size for any budget.
“Don’t think you can’t afford us, just give us a call,” he said.
During the pandemic Jeremy said he has made plenty of fun cakes including pandemic birthday cakes, “Tiger King” cakes, toilet paper cakes and a massive model airplane cake. “We do it all. Everyone comes to me for weird s&*%.”
Jeremy added that he wants to make all the “crazy monster cakes” and as a big “Star Wars” fan he hopes someone will hire him to make a Boba Fett cake.
For more information about Hardcore Sweet, visit hardcoresweetcupcakes.com.