Reviewed by: Lisa Battles
Meet Huntsville’s baking influencer, known as Sugar Pusher
Reading time: 6 minutes
Huntsville resident Ally Duncan grew up accused of being a “Sugar Pusher.” Constantly baking, she would bring cupcakes, cakes and pastries to friends, always “pushing sugar” on them.
Now, she’s pushing the envelope of content creation and baking success, with nearly one million followers, countless viral reels and a platform to advocate for mental health.
This is Ally’s story.
Choosing Huntsville as her home
Growing up a “navy brat,” moving was second nature to Ally until her family relocated to Huntsville when she was 17. Since then, she’s enjoyed putting down roots in the Rocket City for over 20 years.
Despite traveling abroad, she’s continued to call Huntsville home and even convinced her British husband to move across the pond.
“We’ve had the opportunity to move several times, but we enjoy staying here. It’s such a nice, affordable place.
We live close to downtown and love being five minutes away from Big Spring Park and Honest Coffee. Plus, we have so many new places coming in, like The Orion Amphitheater. Huntsville is growing so much.”
Ally Duncan, “Sugar Pusher”
Aside from baking (more on that in a moment), Ally loves “anything to do with animals,” especially her cat, ‘Tater.’ On an average day, you can find her walking around Big Spring Park, feeding squirrels out of her hand and finding proper food to nourish local ducks. Ally’s pro tip: don’t feel the ducks bread—it isn’t good for them. Instead, pick up a bag of duck food from Tractor Supply or Rural King.
Following her love of music
Ally loves how creating content allows her to express her creativity. (Lacey Muenstermann / Hville Blast)
Ally’s successful career in content creation isn’t her first taste of fame. Growing up, she had two primary interests—music and baking. Fueled by the encouragement of her dad, she first decided to pursue the former.
“I was 18 and trying to figure out what to do, and I was really lucky to have a supportive dad who wanted me to succeed in life, even if it was in a different way than he anticipated.
At the time, my friends’ parents were disowning them if they didn’t go to college, but my dad knew I loved music. He said, ‘I know this is really what you want to do, and I would hate to see you not do it because you want to fulfill societal norms.'”
Ally Duncan, “Sugar Pusher”
With her father’s support, Ally’s days of choir practices, vocal lessons and theater productions soon gave way to features on MTV shows like “Jersey Shore,” “The Hills” and more.
Yet, sometimes, success with plan A still turns into a preference for plan B, and after pursuing a copyright infringement lawsuit against a pop star, Ally’s relationship with music didn’t have the same spark.
Rediscovering her creativity in the kitchen
Going back to her roots, Ally remembered the EasyBake oven days of her youth and made a return to the kitchen, landing a job as a pastry chef at a fine dining restaurant. From there, her creative journey took a few twists, turns and detours, including paralegal work and a cottage bakery operation.
Then, in came COVID-19. Aware of her autoimmune disorder, Ally had to dig deeper about what creative work she could continue while limiting contact with the outside world.
“COVID was the peak of people getting into making TikTok videos, and one of my friends suggested that I try it out. I found success with it surprisingly fast. It was not something I ever intended to pursue. It was something, of course, that I had dreamed about—having that sort of creativity and flexibility. Now I feel so lucky to call content creation my full-time job.”
Ally Duncan, “Sugar Pusher”
Dabbling in content creation gifted Ally a huge career with a massive social following. Yet, like anything, the big wins came down to the little things—in this case, the tiny, edible things.
Perfecting the art of tiny baking
Ally’s tiny kitchen is modeled after her own home kitchen. (Lacey Muenstermann / Hville Blast)
The most successful content creators gain traction and grow their audiences by find a niche. Ally knew she had stumbled across hers when she 127 million views on one Instagram reel after taking a stab at tiny baking (with a miniature knife, of course).
After that video and a few others went viral, she doubled her followers in just four months.
Ally also learned that her audience wasn’t the same on each platform. While Instagram viewers applauded her tiny baking endeavors, TikTok fans couldn’t get over her cake frosting videos. Her most popular on that platform? Clips of scraping frosting off a zombie cake to show how content creators decorate and redecorate cakes to avoid waste.
Despite Ally’s enormous success, her content strategy is simple: keep it real.
“I try to keep my accounts and content as authentic as possible, which looks different across multiple platforms.
On Instagram, the tiny videos are fun, like a little joy and escape, but I never want to get stuck doing just one thing. With my workflow, creativity and ADHD, it’s usually a matter of what I feel like shooting that day and what I can get done.
It’s always the content I least expect that goes viral.”
Ally Duncan, “Sugar Pusher”
Beyond the numbers: Ally’s advocacy
Since the pandemic days, Ally has attracted a staggering social media following, comprising 444k followers on Instagram and 460k on TikTok—almost one million in total.
What keeps her going, however, is much more than the numbers—it’s the robust community she’s built, coupled with the ability to have a platform and create conversation around important issues.
“Having this platform has really given me room to talk about important issues like mental health. Personally, I suffer from OCD, and I’m a huge advocate for helping others find access to therapy and treatment.
I love for my pages to feel like a safe, cozy place where you can come and watch the magic of baking tiny, edible food.
If I can make one person feel like they’re less alone in their struggles, that makes all of the work I put into my platform totally worth it.”
Ally Duncan, “Sugar Pusher”
You can find Sugar Pusher on Instagram and TikTok.
Follow along with Sugar Pusher 👇
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