How the Founder of Baked By Melissa Created TikTok’s Viral Green Goddess Salad

Credit - Courtesy of Baked by Melissa

For over a decade, Melissa Ben-Ishay’s name—or perhaps more accurately, Baked by Melissa, the company she founded—has been synonymous with teeny-tiny cupcakes. But these days, Internet denizens might know the 38-year-old baking entrepreneur better as the self-assured mastermind behind TikTok’s most ubiquitous salad, a chopped Green Goddess: an herbaceous, garlicky melange of greens that’s collected fans like music superstar Lizzo and influencer James Charles.

While it might strike some as ironic that the queen of miniscule cupcakes is now the salad doyenne of TikTok, Ben-Ishay credits her newfound fame as a TikTok food influencer to a genuine love of being creative in the kitchen.

“I love to make salad as much as I love to bake cupcakes and dessert,” she told TIME matter-of-factly in a phone interview from her home in Hoboken, N.J. “I think that comes through in the content I create …There are certain things that I can do uniquely for my business that nobody else can do. And TikTok is equally important in the sense that nobody can do it like I can.”

Baked by Melissa’s origins trace back to 2008, when then-24-year-old Ben-Ishay was fired from an advertising job. The next day, Ben-Ishay, an avid baker and cook from an early age, made her now-signature tie-dye cupcakes for a friend’s little sister to take to her first day at a PR internship, which led to the agency’s founder recommending Ben-Ishay to her caterer. Within months, she had a Lower Manhattan storefront and a brand of bite-sized treats with a cult following. While some people may have balked at striking out on their own so quickly, Ben-Ishay demonstrates both tenacity and indefatigable confidence, the latter of which is evident in her TikToks, as she capably dices, chops, and slices while telling viewers that what she’s making is going to be the most delicious thing they’ve ever eaten.

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Her meteoric rise as a food influencer was born out of a response to another major life change: the pandemic. During its early days, at the height of social distancing, Ben-Ishay began spending more time on TikTok, scrolling through videos every night in bed. It wasn’t long before her love of the content’s unfiltered, authentic nature inspired her to create clips for a personal account, which racked up hundreds of thousands of views. After her first video went viral, she knew she had to start making TikToks for the Baked By Melissa brand, which had always thrived on other social media platforms.