The baked goods corner of social media is rife with images of gooey and salt- and sprinkle-flecked treats. But working diligently from a spacious facility in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn – with a focus on creating memorable, if occasionally messy, cakes – Clio Goodman has managed to secure an enviably robust following.
Describing bakers as “artists” has become an industry cliche, but in Goodman’s case, the cakes she sells at ByClio are very much works of art – both despite and because of their imperfections. She’s less interested in scoring likes than making pieces that beguile, and her petal-strewn cakes call to mind edible flower crowns. “People often say the way I frost my cakes has a painterly quality to it,” Goodman says.
Working with a four-person team, Goodman evokes the work of the French impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, whose pieces played up the sultry power of florals. Beyond being beautiful and a reliable crowd-pleaser, Goodman says that flowers “help me connect to my femininity”.
Rife with the colorful, sensuous petals that top her goods, her Instagram grid has earned a handful of high-profile clients, and has been the cornerstone of a business that is in the black three years after she founded it.
The 35-year-old came to her own brand of baking after an eclectic culinary career. There was her time working as a private chef, and the two years she spent as a pastry cook at the Union Square Cafe, Danny Meyer’s acclaimed Manhattan restaurant. Goodman also helped develop and open the now legendary Pudding Shop in the East Village, known for its vast spectrum of flavors, and she spent time as the executive pastry chef at BKLYN Larder, the prestigious prepared foods emporium blocks away from Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Her latest project, ByClio Bakery, began in her home kitchen, during lockdown. Her sugary creations, which have gained a following of other artists and creatives on Instagram, ooze with individuality. There is nothing cookie-cutter or formulaic about Goodman’s cakes, which are packed with unique flavors such as cardamom, saffron and Turkish coffee, and often decked out with flower petals.
“I’m just embracing tastes that I’ve gotten to know over time, and I’m sharing them with other people,” says Goodman, who studied baking and pastry arts at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
Goodman, who is also an accomplished visual artist, initially sold her cakes through Instagram before setting up shop out of a tiny spot in Greenpoint, also in Brooklyn. A year ago, she moved into her massive and light-filled Gowanus facility. It was “love at first sight, plus it’s close to where my parents grew up”. There, she sells cakes whole and by the slice, along with brownies, cookies and bars.
Now celebrating a full year in her store, Goodman says she is ready to take her business to the next level. She has her eye on the success of a new line of packaged cake mixes she is launching and has been promoting via social media. “Instagram is my main marketing tool,” she says.
Goodman believes that her range of ready-made cake mixes offers the most likely – and most immediate – opportunity to grow her company. “The bakery itself is like a boutique and I would like it to stay a boutique,” she says. “But I would like one of the products I’m making to have some more commercial success and growth. Mixes are the most obvious path toward expansion at a cost I can afford at the moment. I have to do something that makes sense for where I’m at right now.” The baker, who can often be found running the cash register until closing, has set a goal of boosting her revenue two and a half times from where it is now.