A birthday dessert has set the internet ablaze.
Back in November, Kristina Hyde posted a TikTok video showing the mayhem that ensued during a Thanksgiving-slash-birthday celebration in Kansas City, Missouri, when her grandmother Ann set the cake on fire.
“Shall we sing happy birthday first?” Ann says at the start of the video, preparing to celebrate the birthday of her son, David, the man seated beside her. She begins to sing, but then realizes she forgot something.
“Well, I guess, after we light it,” she says, picking up a long lighter and preparing to flambé a baked Alaska sitting on the table. “It’s more dramatic, right?”
Truer words have never been spoken.
“We’ll start singing as you light it,” Trey, her grandson, says off-camera.
“Ready?” Ann asks the group.
In a regretful move, Ann pours a punch-glass-full of liquor over the dessert and lights it on fire before emptying the cup. This results in the cake, cup and tablecloth bursting into flames.
Chaos ensues. David instinctively takes the still-aflame cup from his mother and drops it, which spreads the fire beyond the table, with fiery utensils hitting a rug on the floor. Ann takes the flaming cake and sets it on a wicker chair as Trey, David’s wife Ingrid and other family members stamp out the spreading fire.
They all do this in an eerily quiet way, save for the clanging of plates and whooshing of fabric smothering escaped flames. The video ends with laughter from Peter, David’s brother, as he looks on in stunned silence.
This video, as well as a pair of other videos showing different angles of the blaze, garnered millions upon millions of views on TikTok, and spread to X, Instagram and Reddit, where it was called a “silent birthday fire crash out.”
Everyone had something to say about it:
Comedy sketch influencer Madison Humphrey even re-created the fiery fiasco in a parody, playing the part of Ann.
In addition to all the comments and parodies, TikTokers have actually posted analyses of the event, with one creator messaging Kristina for the scoop and another positing that Ann “was at that door ready to leave” after firing up the family flambé.
The truth is a little less dramatic than folks have made it out to be.
Grandma Ann speaks
“I was going to go for the fire extinguisher, but we probably didn’t have time for that, did we?” a giggling Ann tells TODAY.com. (The door she can be seen running to in the video leads to the garage.)
“While she was going to the garage to get the fire extinguisher, I went back in a panic, and then you see the cat running,” Trey says. “It was just, like, immense chaos.”
The Hyde family also clarifies the timeline of this event: It actually happened three years ago and recently caught fire, so to speak, on the internet. For the family, it had been a bit of unmentionable lore.
“My uncle and aunt, they were like, ‘Do not say anything. Do not laugh,’” Trey says. “So then after that, it was like this kind of awkward silence for a second and then she came back from the garage and we talked and then we had the cake.”
And because some folks online had no idea why one would set a cake ablaze, Ann explains that David isn’t a fan of chocolate, so for his birthday, she makes a baked Alaska with angel food cake and two layers of ice cream, usually strawberry, raspberry or vanilla.
Lastly, a splash of grain alcohol on top is lit to achieve the blazing effect, which toasts the meringue frosting.
“It’s like a fun process to watch, but she gave us more of a fun show than we expected,” Trey says.
And contrary to popular belief, this wasn’t the first time Ann’s made it: The flaming dessert has been a Hyde family tradition for “very important events.”
“(David’s) not often here for his birthday, so this was really neat,” she says. “I just did the same thing I’ve done very often and got a surprise result, right?”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
