The Los Angeles-based baker Michelle Boulos can still picture the sheet cakes she ate as a child: slathered with bright white frosting, decorated with tiny plastic balloons. But the confections she makes and sells via her Instagram account No Good Cakes are something else entirely. On one recent creation, frills of buttercream surrounded an acid green ombré surface inspired by a chemical spill. Boulos, 34, started baking the fantastical cakes out of her home in 2022 after making one for a wedding. “I got bitten by the sheet cake bug,” she says.

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Persons: Michelle Boulos, “, Lucie Franc de Ferriere, Rose Wilde, Red, ”, Julie Saha Locations: Los Angeles, Manhattan, Lucie, Williamsburg, Brooklyn