Baker is hit with death threat after she was accused of icing over $7 Woolies mud cakes and selling them for $180: ‘I have made mistakes’
An Australian baker who has been accused of slathering $7 Woolworths mud cakes with icing and selling them for $180 to unsuspecting parents has copped a death threat from an irate customer.
Nadine Walters, 38, has been the subject of accusations from multiple people online in recent weeks, who claim their cakes ordered from Mrs Walters Wonderful Cakes were the wrong flavour, covered in pet hair, and smelled faintly of smoke.
Many say they were never sent refunds for incorrect orders and complained of late deliveries riddled with excuses.
One person cut into their child’s chocolate-flavoured birthday cake with blue frosting, only to find the distinctive chocolate and white swirled icing seen on the iconic Woolies mud cake.
Buyers aired their grievances to a community Facebook page in Traralgon, 160km west of Melbourne in recent weeks, prompting a wave of cancelled orders.
Last week, Ms Walters posted footage of a woman at her doorstep in Churchill, Victoria, 160km east of Melbourne, who had accosted her looking for a refund last week.
The woman can be heard yelling, ‘If you take a photo or a video of me I will f**king kill you’.
Ms Walters told her to ‘go’ and confirmed that she was filming the incident, insisting, ‘I have no intention of stealing your money. But I have multiple people to refund because of that post’.
Victorian baker Nadine Walters was outed for using supermarket cakes
One irate customer arrived at her home and threatened to kill her
Steph Brown shared a picture of her relative’s cake clearly showing Woolies’ iconic icing
As the woman stormed off, calling the cakemaker a ‘c***’ as she left, Ms Walters then chased her to the end of her property, declaring she was ‘going to see what house you live in then’.
In posting the neighbourhood confrontation to her business page, which has more than 7,000 followers, Ms Walters said: ‘This is not how you come over after a $50 refund after cancelling a cake and in front of my kids [sic]’.
Ms Walters, a mother-of-three, bakes out of her home, although an ABN linked to Mrs Walters Wonderful Cakes is currently listed as cancelled since March 2023.
Steph Brown, a 24-year-old Traralgon mum, told the Daily Mail her family has received two botched cakes worth around $200 each from Ms Walters in the past year, including one that smelled faintly of smoke.
‘I got the recommendation from my sister-in-law because she got a cake for her son’s first birthday and it was perfect. I ordered a red velvet cake for December last year, and said if she couldn’t do that, I’d be happy with chocolate or vanilla,’ Ms Brown said.
‘She changed it at the last minute, without telling me, to a lemon cake.’
Ms Brown said her sister-in-law ordered a three-layer $180 Mississippi mud cake for delivery last month.
‘We bit into it and were like, this tastes like a Woolies mud cake. So we scraped the [fondant] off and she had left the Woolies icing on it,’ she said.
Ms Brown said she received a child’s birthday cake that was the wrong flavour
The three layers of Woolies mud cakes were covered in cracked blue fondant
The Woolworths sweet treat has been an affordable morning tea staple for decades
She claimed she had heard of at least four other customers receiving Woolies mud cakes on the same weekend.
‘[Ms Walters] was late to drop off the cake for my sister-in-law, and it wasn’t even in a box. She just pulled it out of her boot with no cover on it.’
At the time, Ms Walters said she was running late due to having a flat tyre.
When Ms Brown’s sister-in-law messaged Ms Walters to complain about the cake on August 1, she explained that she’d had an oven malfunction two days prior, and that her ‘only option’ for her weekend orders was to ‘buy the layers’.
She offered a $50 ‘credit’ due to the fact that she ‘did not bake the cake’.
Ms Brown said her family have not received even partial refunds for the botched orders, and ultimately shared the story on social media out of frustration.
She said Ms Walters was now refusing to refund her due to her posting about it, and has since blocked her, her sister-in-law and her mother-in-law on Facebook.
In a text exchange seen by the Daily Mail, Ms Walters complained about the situation being ‘posted all over Facebook’, and added, ‘You acted like I gave you a cake with f***ing poison in it’.
Mrs Walters Wonderful Cakes features an AI-created profile pic
Ms Walters fired off a furious response to the Daily Mail this week
Ms Brown told the Daily Mail, ‘Don’t get me wrong. The Woolies mud cakes are fine. But not for the price she charged. And at least try to scrape off the [original] icing and make it not look as obvious’.
Woolies mud cakes – an affordable and much-loved sweet treat Australia-wide – retail for around $7.10.
A second local family, who wished to remain anonymous, shared pictures of a 2023 order from Mrs Walters Wonderful Cakes that appeared to show multiple strands of pet hair.
Ms Walters has at least one cat and a dog.
‘We used it to sing happy birthday and then threw it in the bin because of the hair,’ the customer said.
Another woman posted to social media that a cake she ordered ‘a few years ago’ was inedible due to having animal fur on it.
When approached for comment, Ms Walters said she could not talk about the videoed confrontation with an irate customer at her front door.
‘There is a current investigation going on regarding the visitor to my house this week, so this isn’t to be mentioned and my children were involved,’ she said.
One customer shared several images appearing to show pet hair on her cake
Ms Walters owns at least one cat and one dog, but said she was cleared by an ‘inspection’
The video remained on Ms Walters’ business page as of Monday afternoon, but was removed following the Daily Mail’s request for comment.
Ms Walters was also asked to comment on the use of a supermarket cake, the presence of pet hair on her orders, and to explain why her ABN was listed as cancelled.
In response, she said: ‘What grounds do you have to post this story? Two cakes I had to purchase layers for last minute due to issues on my [end]. I didn’t deny this and it actually cost more to do so.
‘I have had an inspection after the cat hair complaint there were no issues.
‘So many of these comments were family and friends of said posting people who lied and commented they had Woolies cakes talking about the same cake!
‘Please feel free to call Latrobe City Council, I’ve been registered since I started every year with yearly inspections.
‘I am a mother of three kids, two of which are [aged between] four and two. I’ve moved house twice in the last 5 years and had a car accident a week before Miss Four being hit by a truck, not at my fault but still went back to work six weeks post birth with a broken collar bone to support my family.
‘Yes I have had mistakes that I’ve owned. Who hasn’t running their own business?
An example of one of Ms Walters’ creative birthday cakes on offer
The baker offered a blunt response to those complaining about her last month
‘But I think my name has been dragged through the mud enough. Is it just the goal for me to have no income and lose everything I have for a few mistakes?
‘People have been refunded who were promised them, I’ve done all I can to try and rectify each situation but I don’t deserve to be abused and have my life threatened.’
When asked if she was sure she had refunded everyone, and also pressed again about the current status of her ABN, Ms Walters said: ‘I won’t be responding further I’ve been advised not to further any communication’.
On August 12, she appeared to make light of the situation, posting a picture to her business page showing a decal that read, ‘I baked you some shutthefucupcakes’, together with the caption, ‘Could have filled a few boxes of these the last few weeks’.
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