Looking for a way to celebrate Will Stein coming home to Kentucky? How about a cake baked by his aunt and mother? You’ll have to get in line, as Sissy Cakes bakery in Louisville has been slammed since the news that Stein will be Kentucky’s new head coach broke on Monday.
Stein’s mother Debbie and his aunt Blakey have been baking together for over 20 years, and in 2021, started selling their “Sissy Cakes” at Paul’s Fruit Market in Louisville. A year later, the sisters opened their first location in St. Matthews. Today, it’s the hottest bakery in the Bluegrass as Kentucky fans share their excitement over Stein returning to his old Kentucky home. In fact, when we sent our special correspondent, Jay in Lyndon, to check the bakery out this morning, Debbie was doing an interview on WLKY about how many KSR and Kentucky fans had come in since the rumors first started flying.
“Oh my gosh, it’s hard to even put into words,” Debbie said on KSR. “I mean, my heart is racing right now so fast. It’s so exciting.”
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It’s especially cool when you learn Debbie is a KSR fan herself. She attended Kentucky, where her husband played defensive end for Jerry Claiborne from 1980-85. Both Steins went to UofL for graduate school and settled in the city, but had season tickets for both Kentucky Football and Basketball, regularly making the trek down I-64 with their sons to cheer on the Cats. Will dreamed of playing for Kentucky, but got a walk-on spot at Louisville instead, playing for Steve Kragthorpe, and eventually, Charlie Strong. Ahead of his first game against Kentucky as Louisville’s starting quarterback in 2011, Stein recited the exact spot in Commonwealth Stadium where his family had season tickets in an interview in the Herald-Leader: Section 128, Row 13.
Debbie said the family eventually gave up the tickets as their sons (William, Matthew, Nathan, and Lee) got older and went on to do different things, but the Steins still bleed blue, especially in enemy territory. Debbie listens to KSR daily and has Kentucky Football schedule posters (picked up at Kroger) all over her office at the bakery, where she boxes up her sister’s famous bundt cakes to ship across the country and soon, worldwide. She still has the DeMarcus Cousins life-size foldout poster from the Herald-Leader that hung in her boys’ room — laminated, of course.
Debbie admitted that it was “a little strange” to cheer for her son at Louisville, especially when the two teams played at Commonwealth Stadium, but this week’s news proves that everything happens for a reason. Stein played for Charlie Strong at Louisville and served as a graduate assistant on his staff. When Strong left for Texas, Stein stayed at Louisville as an offensive quality control coach under Bobby Petrino before eventually following Strong to Texas.
“I know at some of the UofL games, maybe sometimes I said, ‘Go Cats!’ accidentally,” Debbie said. “I did that a couple of times, but I was like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ But that opportunity for William to go to UofL, he met Bobby Petrino, he met Charlie Strong, the path to Texas, coaching in Texas, it all went the way it really, truly was supposed to go, I believe.”
Now, thankfully, Debbie and Matt can cheer for their son in Kentucky Blue once again, likely from a new set of seats at Kroger Field. They’ll be there tomorrow when William is introduced as head coach, with Debbie pitching in to babysit her grandsons. After that, it’s back to work. There are lots and lots of cakes to sell.
“Blakey and I have been baking cakes for thirty years, and we have this little cake business that is just absolutely exploding, even before all of this,” Debbie said. “It’s something. And our orange cake is the world-famous cake.”
World-famous in part thanks to her son, who sang Sissy Cakes’ praises from Eugene. The cakes have been featured during Oregon games on CBS, making a fan out of broadcaster Brad Nessler, who said the orange cake is the best thing he’s ever tasted. If you want to try one for yourself, visit Sissy Cakes at 102 Fairfax Avenue, Suite B, in Louisville, just down the street from Trinity.
