Here's What You Need To Know About The Tomte Cake From Shark Tank
It's Christmas time on "Shark Tank," and that means all sorts of wintery treats are vying for attention from the show's titular batch of entrepreneurs. In the case of the Tomte Cake, it combines a new-fashioned reconception of the traditional gingerbread house with an old-fashioned Swedish tradition. The result is something easier for kids to eat and decorate, a house that's more likely to stay intact during the decorating process, a treat made of natural ingredients, and an overall product that's much less wasteful. In short, it is the perfect solution to a troublesome holiday problem that often plagues parents who find themselves elbow-deep in dough during the holiday season.
Children's book illustrator and entrepreneur Miranda Vaughn (pen name Miranda Tompkins) is the Tomte Cake's creator. Inspired by a friend's idea, she's created a special set of cake pans and a metal gnome that encourages kids to eat their own handiwork, king cake style. She's heading into the tank looking for financial support for her business, but she's been promoting the legend of the (usually) friendly yuletide elves known as Tomten since 2022. Time will tell if the sharks find her holiday-based pitch alluring, but until then, here's everything you need to know about the Tomte Cake.
Miranda Vaughn came up with Tomte Cakes with a friend's help
According to the official Tomte Cake website, Miranda Vaughn claims a conversation about gingerbread houses inspired her to create the Tomte Cake. Talking with a fellow mother about holiday traditions, they realized they loved making gingerbread cakes, but the mess and taste of the original product left them cold. They talked about how creating a mini cake pan might be a good idea instead of soldering together big chunks of gingerbread. The friend suggested that a picture book explaining the cake's purpose might be a good idea. Vaughn later came up with an idea, scribbling the story down on the back cover of her daughter's coloring book. A year later — after searching for a manufacturer to help her produce high-quality pans — the Tomte Cake became a reality.
Vaughn may have also been partially inspired by an old folktale. In Swedish and other European traditions, a tomte or tomten are gnomes or house elves who are strongly associated with yuletide and the Christmas season. They are guardians of the homes and barns where they live and dedicate themselves to protecting and assisting the people who dwell there. But it's never wise to mess with a tomte, who will do anything from playing a prank on an unsuspecting human victim to violently turning on the livestock they're supposed to protect if they feel insulted.
They have a 100 percent positive rating on Facebook
Apparently, Miranda Vaughn's customers love what she's doing: The Tomte Cake has a five-star rating on Facebook, albeit from only three reviews. The company also has 1,200 followers and 1,400 likes. On Instagram, the news is just as good, where the company sports over 2,000 followers. On the company's website, every single review is five stars, with 16 consumers weighing in to express their delight with the product.
Many of the reviews express the consumers' delight in the quality of the product and the value they've gotten for their dollar, as well as the original story in Vaughn's picture book. Each Tomte Cake set includes two baking pans, an aluminum Tomte figure, Vaughn's picture book, and a recipe card with the gingerbread-like traditional tomte cake recipe printed on it. Vaughn's fairy tale features a gnome named Tomte who falls into a bowl of cake batter. Though he manages to get baked into a cake, he survives and births a brand new Christmastime tradition in his village. To reflect this legend, kids bake their aluminum tomtes into cake batter, then decorate the cooled products. They then eat their cakes until they find the hidden gnome.
Miranda Vaughn's children often appear on Tomte Cake's social media
The Tomte Cake appears to be a family affair for Miranda Vaughn. Her son and daughter frequently appear on social media connected to Tomte Cake, both demonstrating how to make the titular treat and appearing in videos alongside their mother. They sometimes even get viral spotlights of their own, extolling the virtues of the cake without speaking a single word. Vaughn's husband appears more rarely in the company's branding but does occasionally show up in Tomte-related Facebook posts.
Vaughn's children aren't the only ones who have put their faces behind the Tomte Cake brand. Instagram influencers such as Lizzy Lou's Family Farm, Sarahanne Loneger, The Spur, and other family Instagram accounts have promoted the Tomte Cake. Vaughn's products have also been stocked in several businesses around the country, which seems to have earned her a prominent profile in her small women-owned business community in Oregon.
Miranda Vaughn was cast on the show at a Shark Tank cattle call
How did Miranda Vaughn and The Tomte Cake end up on "Shark Tank"? It appears that she tried her luck at a casting call in March 2023 and was selected from a panel of many other local contestants to appear on the show. She posted a reel featuring her experience to her Facebook, but due to legal reasons, she could not post what her pitch looked like. Whatever she said to the test panel apparently got their attention because Vaughn has been called up to share The Tomte Cake with the rest of the world.
Will her fortunes rise or fall under the sharks' watchful eyes? It remains to be seen how things will turn out for Vaughn, but to find out just how merry her holiday will be, tune in to "Shark Tank" on Friday, December 8 — with or without a cable subscription.
What happened to The Tomte Cake on Shark Tank?
Stay-at-home mom turned entrepreneur Miranda Vaughn enters the tank hoping that her fresh take on the stale gingerbread house will start a new holiday tradition. After launching in 2022 with little more than a Facebook ad, Vaughn managed to sell out all 5,000 units of her Tomte Cake sets. She wants to expand on that success, and the sharks are interested in helping her do just that.
Kevin O'Leary starts things off quickly by offering Vaughn $200,000 for a 25% stake in addition to 25% on any distributions she takes from the company. Lori Greiner swoops in next with an offer of $200,000 for 33.3%. Making matters more complicated is Vaughn's desire to expand into retail. O'Leary seems skeptical, but Greiner sees the vision.
Barbara Cocoran joins the feeding frenzy with her own offer of $200,000 for 20%. However, it's clear that Vaughn has her sights set on Greiner, and tries to get her to lower her stake to 20%. Greiner says she'll come down to 25% but won't go lower. Meanwhile, Mark Cuban stays out of the fray and Daymond John is shut out entirely — he makes unsuccessful pitches to team up with Cocoran or Greiner, and his own personal offer is all but ignored.
In the biggest surprise of the episode, O'Leary shakes the table by changing his offer to $200,000 for a 15% stake. Although Vaughn still has hope for a deal with Greiner, she can only get the Queen of QVC to come down to 24%. Ultimately, she puts the money over her personal preference and makes a deal with O'Leary to the shock of the other sharks.
As John puts it while Vaughn exits the tank, "It was the Grinch that stole Christmas."