SHEPHERDSTOWN — Cake lovers and bakers are about to discover a new event in Shepherdstown, created with them in mind.

Skull City Studio, located at 105 South Princess Street, will host the first ever Great Little Cake Exchange on Saturday, from 3-6 p.m. Its organizer, studio owner Pang Tubhirun, said the event was inspired by similar ones that have begun springing up across the country in recent years.

“I saw a similar event being done through the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C. There’s this organization called the Great Big Cake Exchange and every year they do something like this,” Tubhirun said of the cake potluck-like event, at which 300 cakes were featured this past July.

That event was inspired by an earlier trend, Cake Picnic, which originated in Port Townsend, Wash. in 2013. The annual event remained relatively unknown until 2024, when a similar event series was founded in San Francisco. The Cake Picnic Tour soon went viral online and has become a popular event in every city it has visited across the country, with some events receiving as many as 1,000 cake entries.

“One of the many reasons I opened up Skull City, was because I wanted to bring cool events like this to Shepherdstown,” Tubhirun said. “I love cake and I know we have a lot of amazing bakers in the Eastern Panhandle, so I thought, ‘Why not bring this really cool event to town?’ We’ve never had anything like this before in the area.”

Tubhirun said her event will be similar to its predecessors, though on a smaller scale. An entry fee of $10 will be charged to each participant. All participants must bring with them a recipe card and a fully-decorated cake, at least six inches in size. Each participant will receive a complimentary beverage and box at the event, which can be filled with slices from the cakes at the Great Little Cake Exchange.

“You can bake your own cake at home or you can buy a cake, but everybody has to bring a cake,” Tubhirun said. “That way, everybody gets enough cake to take home. We want to make sure everybody walks out happy.”

There will be one fun twist to the event’s format, Tubhirun said.

“We’ll send everybody home with a list of the cakes. Then, as soon as they have tasted the cakes, they can enter their favorites,” Tubhirun said, mentioning an online database will be used for tallying the votes. “We will have a few different categories for people to vote for, like the best decorated cake, the best tasting cake, the crowd pleaser or perhaps even the weirdest combination — I saw somebody with a mango curry cake at the event in D.C.”

The cakes will be cut at 4 p.m., once participants have been able to get a look at all of their decorations.