Codetta Bake Shop sits inside Light Street Church, smack in the middle of Federal Hill. Inside, owner Sumayyah Bilal works in her Codetta-teal tee, in a frenzy of baking cakes, cupcakes, and cheesecake. All around her are sticks of butter, bins of flour, bags of sugar—and Bilal somehow works multiple stand mixers that line the walls.
Bilal can still remember the Easy-Bake oven she got when she turned eight. “I’ve just been baking my whole life,” she says. She became her family’s go-to baker, but she never thought she could turn her love of baking into a full-time job. “I actually went to school to be a music teacher.”
Codetta Bake Shop actually started as a side-hustle in 2018, (the name is an inside music-theory joke—ask Bilal to explain it when you stop by) with Bilal baking cheesecakes out of her studio apartment. She sold one or two a month to friends and colleagues, but it quickly expanded. She started adding cupcakes, cakes, and custom orders. She would say yes to anything—her experiment phase she calls it—and created many of her current flavor combinations during that time. In the fall of 2020 Bilal felt ready to leave her teaching job and go all in on her baking business. And she hasn’t looked back since.
“After I got a bunch of experience doing different things, then I solidified what I really want to focus on,” Bilal said. “Cheesecakes is our main thing, but a lot of people know us first for our cupcakes,” she says. “But we do a ton of other stuff too.”
A ton is an understatement. Cakes range from classic to let-your-dreams-run-wild. There’s vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, Funfetti, strawberry, snickerdoodle, cappuccino, butter pecan, key lime, or passionfruit ginger, just to name a few. The layers filled with ganache or mousse, 20-plus buttercream flavors, or cheesecake (yes, it’s real, and yes, it’s delicious.) The dozens of cupcake choices offer great flavor combinations, like malted milk chocolate, cinnamon roll, strawberry milkshake, maple bacon, peaches n’ cream, and white chocolate raspberry. Bilal still makes her very first cheesecake flavor—eggnog, but now her menu includes caramel apple, mocha dream, and one she calls “Oh my g’nache!”
“We have our standard like vanilla cake recipe, chocolate cake recipe, we know how to make our buttercreams, we know how to make different toppings,” says Bilal “And now we improvise with the pieces and make something that ends up being greater than the sum of its parts.”
The ultimate customization comes when she takes catering jobs for weddings. Usually couples order a classic three-tiered cake, but also cheesecake bites, decadent cupcakes, and a bevy of treats to create a dessert bar.
“I love our wedding orders, they’re so creative,” Bilal said. She loves the relationship that forms with each couple.
For Bilal, seeing the progress from initial consultation to the day when she drops off the cake is also a treat. “It is so special to be a part of so many milestone moments in people’s lives,” she says. Especially when she’s able to make things fit dietary needs and people don’t even notice if a cupcake is gluten-free. Lots of “can I really eat this?” followed by happiness, after Bilal assures them it’s safe.
Now six years in, Bilal has started to figure out her next step. She’s currently in the process of leasing a full bakery and café space in the heart of the Bromo Arts District where she can support both her passions—baked goods and live music. Bilal already offers wedding cake tastings, but with more space she wants to turn the experience into a memorable part of wedding planning. But for now, the smiles on her customers’ faces are Bilal’s favorite part of the job.
“I really just see food as a vessel or as a means to connect with people,’ says Bilal. “So, my goal is for Codetta to just be a place where I can connect with our patrons.”
