Will Stein's first win at UK? Boosting his mom's Louisville bakery
The orange juice cakes were always famous to those in the know.
For a couple decades, "those in the know" included a smaller fan base. You were either a member of the Stein family and extended clan, a good friend, or maybe played sports with their kids.
The homemade treats reached all-star status as surprises in school lunches and snacks brought along to football practices, a sweet upgrade to traditional orange slices. And family birthday parties or holiday spreads without orange juice cakes? Forget about it.
The sisters are pretty sure it was William, as they call him, who first requested the bundt cake by its now name. Picking up that his mother, Debbie, and aunt, Blakey, always called each other “Sis,” a young Will Stein made his little-kid craving clear, asking for a “sissy cake.”
“We thought, well, that's adorable,” Blakey Martin told the Courier Journal.
That's around when the sisters, born 11 years apart, first dreamed of opening a little store together. They were busy raising kids and working in Louisville — Debbie as a schoolteacher and Blakey as a fitness instructor — but they kept baking the idea in the back of their minds. Their husbands sometimes asked, “Well, what’s your business plan?” While they didn’t yet know much of the details about online shipping or wholesale accounts, they were sure the place had to be pink.
The sisters, Debbie Stein and Blakey Martin, made their first sale in 2003. By the time they opened a shop across from Trinity High School in 2022, Will Stein's football coaching career had catapulted his family’s bakery business into the spotlight once or twice.
Then a simple, yet history-making Facetime on a Sunday in late November 2025 proved different from the rest. Will Stein told his mother what the rest of the world would soon learn: “Mom, I’m going to be Wildcat.”
The play by play of Sissy Cakes
Almost in the same breath that UK fans learned about the football program's newest head coach, word spread about Will Stein's mother owning a bakery in Louisville.
On Dec. 1, when speculation circled from sources like Kentucky Sports Radio host Matt Jones about Will Stein's new gig at UK, Todd Lanham, known as The Lou Guru on social media, replied on X with a comment about Sissy Cakes.
“Fun fact ... his Mom runs a cake shop in Louisville with her sister called Sissy Cake,” the post from Lanham read. “And their orange juice cake will make you smack yo momma.”
The Chocolate Chip Cake from Sissy Cakes in St. Matthews. January 20, 2026.
Another X user practiced some foreshadowing with the comment, “They better be ready for an influx of orders. This is about to get insane."
That's exactly what happened at Sissy Cakes, 102 Fairfax Ave., after Stein was officially announced as University of Kentucky’s new head football coach late in the evening of Dec. 1.
The next morning, local media outlets began reaching out, and a staffer from Kentucky Sports Radio showed up to the bakery. Debbie Stein then went live on the wildly popular radio station and told Matt Jones she was "verklempt."
“It literally blew up our website,” she told the Courier Journal. “That was a little dicey.”
She recalls Martin's son, who works for the bakery, standing at the computer in amazement at the uptick in orders.
And that was before Will Stein's introductory press conference in Lexington on Dec. 3.
In photos of the press conference, you can see Debbie Stein sitting at Nutter Field House holding one of her grandchildren.
Debbie Nutt Stein pours on some orange juice glaze at Sissy Cakes in St. Matthews. January 20, 2026.
Back at the bakery, it was, as Martin said, "nuts."
"It was all happening simultaneously," she said.
Business picked up so much that the bakery shut down shipping orders for six weeks. When they opened them back up in mid-January, orders again overwhelmed the website.
"We were already on a good trajectory. We were very happy with our growth," Debbie Stein said. "That kind of propelled it even further. It's been nonstop."
How Sissy Cakes got its start
After the seal of approval from their children and beyond, the sisters got more serious about Sissy Cakes.
“We would take the cakes everywhere and people just loved the cake," Blakey Martin said.
The Orange Juice cake from Sissy Cakes in St. Matthews. January 20, 2026.
Debbie Stein first learned about the orange juice treat at a Stein family reunion. She noticed a “very unassuming cake” in a sheet pan.
“I tried it and I had the same reaction that everybody gets,” she said. “Like, ‘Oh my goodness. What is this cake?’”
So, she and her sister tweaked the recipe and began sharing the cake with friends and family.
"That was the start of the orange juice cake," Debbie Stein said.
In the earlier years of Facebook around 2009, they would post something casual like, "We're baking. Does anybody want the orange juice cake?"
The response? "Ding ding, ding," as the sisters said.
Orders spiked around Thanksgiving and Christmas and would be picked up at Martin's house.
Customer Michelle Magrum, center, gets help with her cake purchase from sisters Blakey Nutt Martin, left, and Debbie Nutt Stein at Sissy Cakes in St. Matthews. January 20, 2026.
“And then friends of friends of friends were coming over to get cakes," Debbie Stein said. "So, we're like, OK, this is silly. We need to just do it.”
They took samples to Paul’s Fruit Market and got the go ahead to sell cakes there. That turned into baking at Chef's Space in west Louisville by 2021.
"It allowed us to see if this would be something that was sustainable with minimal investment," Debbie Stein said.
By 2022, they saw enough potential to open a brick-and-mortar in St. Matthews. As promised, the place has pink walls. It also sports UK posters and a photo of little Will Stein wearing a football jersey.
Two photos of Debbie Nutt Stein's family, including her UK head football coach Will Stein in the No.2 jersey, hang from a wall at Sissy Cakes in St. Matthews. January 20, 2026.
And each day, the sisters bake and package cakes together, and the process includes topping the now-famous orange juice cake with a hot glaze. As part of the dream, they get to do all of this together.
“She’s my favorite person,” Debbie Stein said of her sister. “We’re with each other more than anybody."
That connection, doused with plenty of laughs each days, helps power through busier moments. Like in September 2025, when Will Stein was the offensive coordinator at University of Oregon. He passed along a message about Sissy Cakes from CBS broadcaster Brad Nessler.
“I just ate your bundt cake,” Nessler said in a grainy video posted on Sissy Cake’s Instagram. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, dessert wise or maybe even food wise altogether in my life.”
Nessler shared the same praise during the live broadcast of Oregon’s game.
That, understandably, created a “whirlwind” for the small bakery. Looking back, that was just a rehearsal for the big game of Will Stein returning to his home state.
What's next for Sissy Cakes
The buzz from Will Stein's anointment into Big Blue Nation could've proved a fluke for Sissy Cakes.
Not the case.
"They are getting cakes and they're coming back," Martin said.
That's because the bakery's handmade treats seem to make a fan in each new customer.
The Big BLUEberry Cake from Sissy Cakes in St. Matthews. January 20, 2026.
"I've said this a thousand times, but it's like you called your best friend and said, 'You gotta make me that cake that's so good,'" she said.
She and her older sister have seen plenty of patrons from across Kentucky, even from as far as Hazard, show up to Sissy Cakes.
"They might say, 'Oh, let's go because it's Will Stein's mom and aunt," Martin said. "The product speaks for itself. Once you get it, you understand."
The product will likely be a hit at UK tailgates later this year. And yes, the bakery has a lifelong fan in Will Stein. His gig inspired the new Big BLUEberry Cake to be added to Sissy Cakes' list of options. As his mom said, "it's really risen in the ranks as far as our favorite cakes."
"People are really loving it," she said. "And I will say that Coach Stein thought that cake was absolutely scrumptious.”
Sissy Cakes, 102 Fairfax Ave. B in Louisville, is open 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. It is closed Sunday. For more details and to place an order, visit sissycakes.com.
Reach food and dining reporter Amanda Hancock at [email protected].
