Kareem Queeman distinctly remembers the first time he baked a cake. The Maryland bakery owner and James Beard Award semifinalist was eight years old, living in Harlem's historic Sugar Hill district. His close-knit extended family would gather monthly to check in, lend financial and other support when needed, and, most importantly, to eat.
"The food was on point," Queeman recalls, taking care to note his family's Southern roots. Queeman, however, was mostly interested in the dessert table, heaped with a mix of homemade and store-bought delights, from coconut pineapple cake and pound cake to his aunt's famous sweet potato pie. One time, Queeman's favorite cake at the time — vanilla boxed cake with chocolate frosting — was noticeably absent.
"I remember saying to my mother, I wanna make my own cake," Queeman said. "So we went and got a Pillsbury cake mix — had to be butter or yellow — and canned chocolate frosting. I made it in my aunt's pan, which I still have to this day. The pan was too long, the oven was janky, so the cake came out lopsided, but I ate the whole thing. Then I wanted to bake it again."
Nowadays, Queeman — also known as Mr. Bake — is best known for his nostalgic, scratch-made cakes, cupcakes and banana pudding at Mr. Bake Sweets, his namesake dessert studio at Le Fantome Food Hall in Riverdale Park, Md. A regular on Food Network baking competition shows who also appeared on Netflix's "Sugar Rush Christmas," Queeman was named a Semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker in the 2023 James Beard Awards.
Resolve and relentless determination are intrinsic to Queeman, driving him since that first bake ignited a dream to open his own bakery in his neighborhood. His tenacity saw him through the early days of making banana pudding in his bedroom and selling custom cakes to fellow high school students and faculty, through culinary school and a series of unpaid internships that ultimately landed him enough paid bakery work to sustain him until striking out on his own in 2008. The word "intentionality" has become a focus of Queeman's much more recently, over the past eight-odd years he's built a presence on food media, which started him on the path of creating space for Black and brown chefs who are openly gay or queer.
"As a kid there was not a lot of representation out there," said Queeman, a Black gay man. "Now as an adult there still isn't a lot."
Cake by Kareem "Mr. Bake" Queeman (WoodD)Growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, navigating the streets of Harlem gave Queeman his first whiffs of what it meant to be Black long before he had identified and voiced his homosexuality. His single, chronically ill mother parented Queeman and his brother hard in the era of stop-and-frisk policing and the Central Park Five case (whose since-exonerated Black and brown teens were all from Harlem).
"She never understood what it meant to be a baker or get into the food industry," he said. "She wanted us to find 'secure' jobs, you know what I mean? Things to keep us out of trouble."
Queeman's grandmother gave him a safe space to bake in her home, and his neighbors offered baking advice and taste-tested his experiments. As he navigated another level of his voice via his sexuality, he found sanctuary in the Black queer ballroom community, where he first connected with trans folks and met mentors like his late friend Gary, a custodian of Black queer history in New York. He reveled in dance as a liberating form of expression.
"As people we have this box we like to live in, 85 to 90% of us moving in a robotic way. Maybe 5% of us make decisions because we're dedicated to being courageous, feeling fear and moving through it.""
"I always had this ability — and knew I needed — to find safe spaces and navigate the world to really speak and find my voice," Queeman said. "It's about finding your voice and standing in your truth when you are going to shine brightest. As people we have this box we like to live in, 85 to 90% of us moving in a robotic way. Maybe 5% of us make decisions because we're dedicated to being courageous, feeling fear and moving through it."
He defied the warnings of his mom and skeptical friends who balked at the notion of a culinary career as financially viable, and enrolled in New York's Monroe College. After graduating, he left for the D.C. area in 2010 and worked as a cake decorator at Fluffy Thoughts Cakes followed by Crumbs Bake Shop. Queeman settled in Prince George's County in Maryland, and started Mr. Bake as a catering business, workshop and wholesale bakery.
Shortly thereafter, he started a YouTube show called "Baking with Mr. Bake." He decided to apply for a spot on Discovery Family's "Bake it Like Buddy" in 2018, coming home with the win — and immortalized footage of the Cake Boss himself, Buddy Valastro, begging for the recipe for Queeman's sweet potato cake.
Growing up in the golden era of Food Network cooking shows, Queeman never saw his likeness in its stars, despite seeing thriving Black-owned bakeries like Make My Cake in his own backyard. It was a microcosm for the tessellation Queeman saw in late '90s Harlem even if it wasn't painted with such nuance in national media at the time. Sure, there were gangs and corner drug deals to contend with on the way to and from school. But Queeman was also surrounded by Black small businesses, Black professionals who owned stately brownstones, and Black gay men who wore bright yellows and pinks in bold defiance of the hyper-masculinity that suffused his neighborhood.
Even amid the influx of chefs of color and growing chorus of queer voices on multimedia platforms today, the diversity therein, as in many communities, remains vastly underrepresented. It's a big reason why Queeman set his sights on growing his public-facing profile. In addition to booking more television appearances, he's working on a children's book and created The Family Table, a dinner series amplifying queer voices and fostering empathy and understanding, which he also edits and airs on his YouTube channel. The second will feature a conversation among parents with queer children of varying ages.
Cupcakes by Kareem "Mr. Bake" Queeman (Scott Buchmann)"We talk about fostering a stronger sense of community within our own community," he said. "Because there's still segregation. For instance, because of their age, people might not understand the importance of people sharing their pronouns. It's not for you to understand; it's for you to accept."
The engine powering this advocacy work remains what makes him happiest: baking. Mr. Bake Sweets' custom occasion cakes and cupcakes continue to fly off the shelves, but Queemam is looking to stretch himself beyond the cakes that made him — introducing banana pudding, brownies and desserts featuring seasonal fruits and curds, and debuting his version of his Aunt Janet's famous sweet potato pie. Without a written record of hers, he's engineered it to be his own while still honoring its rich, fluffy and sweet nostalgia.
Then again, Queeman will never really stand still, as he sees his calling as one higher than dispensing sweet treats to people during special moments in their lives.
"Yes, I bake really well, and people enjoy it, but I really think I was pushed to do these things so I can liberate minds and unshackle us from our societal norms," he said.
More love and understanding, one dessert at a time.
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