Auld Lang Syne

When I was a kid, every New Years Eve was spent up at our family cabin in Whistler, British Columbia, a two-hour drive from Vancouver, from the early 1970s onward, when Whistler was still a ski-bum town with actual cottages and cabins, not multi-million dollar mega-chalets! We would eat my mom's famous "Beef Deep" (slices of roast beef in buns dipped in Au Jus) and plain ripple chips with French Onion dip, play board games or charades and listen to the local radio station, waiting for the first few bars of "Auld Lang Syne" to signal the ringing in of the New Year. Auld Lang Syne is one of my favorite songs. It's a real tear-jerker, that song. The adults would toast with wine or champagne and us little kids in our pyjamas would toast with bubbly apple cider (and occasionally dent a pot or two with some raucous banging with a wooden spoon) and everyone would hug and kiss and bring in good cheer. Now I sit here eating a box of organic raisins that was in my Xmas stocking, thinking back on 2008, the year Coco Cake was born.

This holiday season was a crazy one, but a fun one! Lots of nutty Coco Cake projects coming up in January, mainly my nephew's 1st birthday party, Totoro-themed! Above: The pink bags with cutie stripey tags were this year's baking gifts, spicy gingersnaps made by yours truly; the almond macaron with strawberry buttercream was one of my Christmas presents to my sis Leanne, who LOOOVES those crazy light, crispy/chewy meringue burgers. My first attempt at macaron! A dangerous move on Christmas Eve, but it had to be done. The rest is a small collection of some of the cupcakes that have streamed out of Coco Cake's kitchen in the last few weeks. Blue mint buttercream topped chocolate cake in silver wrappers and silver dragees were whipped up for a theme party; light green mint buttercream minis were tucked into gift boxes as a thank-you to staff at a computer company; and swirls of mint buttercream with crunchy peppermint candy cane sprinkles sat on top of moist chocolate cupcakes as a holiday gift to a busy hair salon. More to come, but for now...

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Love,
L

My Honeybun's Birthday, and Snow Days!

Ooooh, a lovely light green and pink mint buttercream chocolate-ganache filled cake! Is it an 11 year old girl in a frilly frock's fanciful children's birthday party?? No, not quite... it's my husband's 31st birthday cake!!! The request was for a mint buttercream chocolate cake. So my thinking was, a light green would be very minty, I'm going to make light green buttercream. Then I thought, ooooh pink would be a lovely contrast color considering green and red are complimentary colors on the color spectrum. Then I thought, ooooh I'm going to pipe flower stars on the top! Once I was finished I was like, "ooooh, it looks so pretty... but wait a minute... perhaps it's not the most masculine cake in the world??" Luckily for me my husband isn't concerned with cakes looking too gendered in either direction--- he loved it! And it turned out perfectly moist and delectable. Not a crumb was left at the end of our Oktoberfest-themed sausauge, beer and cheese birthday party. Happy Birthday Rich!!! You are the best and I love you tons!

Snow has sprinkled its little self onto Vancouver's world, quite a lovely sight to wake up to this morning. Many holiday cupcakes have been baked over the past week and I will post if I have some time. If I don't talk to ya before then, Happy Holidays from Coco Cake Land!!!

Hamburger Cake: The Reprise

For those of you who know Gerry Sung personally, you know he's a man of few words (although inside he's quite likely chuckling away). So when the man himself REQUESTS a HAMBURGER CAKE for his 65th birthday, there's no two ways about it: you make the guy a HAMBURGER CAKE, an extra special one, with coconut vanilla cake and dark chocolate cake, vanilla buttercream and chocolate ganache filling. So here is Hamburger Cake: The Reprise, made especially for my beloved dad, the man, the master, Gerry Sung!!! Happy Birthday dad, love you lots!

I Am Lion, Hear Me Roar

Or does he meow? These little lions might make baby roars! Coco Cake made these little specialty lion cupcakes, chocolate ganache with fondant and buttercream "mane", for cute Nathaniel's 2nd birthday! Coco Choco Vanilla mini madness in many colors also ensued so far this weekend. And yes, believe it or not the last picture of the mini chocolate ganache "butter"creams are vegan, for a little guy named Cooper! More to come from the Coco Cake kitchen today... Will post when I'm all finished, stay tuned!

Pinky The Pup and Coco Cake

"Woof woof!" said Pinky The Pup.

"Yesssss???" said Coco Cake sole proprietor L.Sung.

"I love fancy and delicious cupcakes!" said Pinky The Pup.

"As do I, young Pup." said L.Sung.

"But I cannot eat your lovely delicious treats!" said The Pup.

"Why not??" said L.Sung.

"Because I am but a toy!" said Pinky The Pup.

Alas, it was all true.

So instead, a photo shoot ensued.

Coco Choco Peppermint!

Holiday flavours are fun to come up with. A classique holiday flave is chocolate and peppermint-- precisely the two fine flavours featured in Coco Cake's Coco Choco Peppermint! Moist dark chocolate cake with peppermint buttercream and a sprinkle, or sweet shard of crushed candy cane to finish. Pictured here: some snow-capped Coco Choco Peppermint minis; minis with their decoration in a wintry red-plaid-blanket holiday scene, and for my sweet friend Shi-Shi's birthday, a mixture of mini Coco Choco Peppermint and vegan Chocolate Ganache!

TOOK

What a wonderful day at Toque, the art sale at the Western Front in Vancouver! I am happy to say that Coco Cake cupcakes were indeed a hit, thank you to those who bought one and enjoyed it and told me about it! Coco Cake flavours Coco Choco Peppermint, Lemon Love and VEGAN Chocolate Ganache all met with rave reviews. The cutest thing was seeing people walk around chomping into chocolate cake with peppermint buttercream, or seeing a little kid licking all the frosting off the top of his cupcake. There's a picture of me standing behind the bake sale table which I shared with the lovely Lisa from Piece of Cake (coincidentally we realized we went to HIGH SCHOOL together-- bake sale reunion!). Unfortch the picture of me makes me look like a Chinese pumpkin with a shaded face but what can ya do, it's the only pic I've got and it makes me dream about standing behind my own counter at a miniature and adorable boutique cupcake retail store of my own one day...!

Yay for dreaming... I'm the Chinese cupcake Dreamweaver... !

Thanks to all who came out to see me at Toque! Special thanks to a certain handsome tall guy who helped me lug all my stuff there and back too...

Love,
L

Coco Cake at Toque this Saturday!

This old gal's probably thinking: "Ahhh, my leg!!"

In Vancouver there is a most excellent and lovely art fair called TOQUE, held at the Western Front. This year Coco Cake will be selling boutique cupcakes live and in person! Toque has the loveliest of craft/art vendors, a curated fair of fine and wonderful goods. Get your holiday shopping on, and come out and come say hi and try a little cupcake while you're at it! I'll be selling holiday fave Coco Choco Candy Cane and regular Coco Cake fave Lemon Love! Hope to see you!

Oh No You Dih'nt L.Sung...?

Oh yes you did! I bought myself a new camera, woohoo!! I've been doing the "I got five thousand doll-ahs" dance for a whole day, Wayne's World style, but instead "I got me a new cam-rah!"...!

Obsessed, I am, with documenting those little fluffer cupper cakes that puff their way out of my vintage brown oven and into my heart with a froof-swirl piping of buttercream and a magic dusting of sprinkles. I got a lovely new Sony digital SLR from Sony Style!

Upcoming events I'm excited to document: my nephew Brody's first birthday on December 31st, and Coco Cake sole proprietor L.Sung has some ridiculously cute ideas up her puffed sleeve for the adorable little guy! Key word: TOTORO. Stay tuned!

So here are the first pics from my new camera, birthday cupcakes for a gal named Hyo Shin, dark chocolate Coco Choco with chocolate buttercream, and Berry Good with baby-pink creamcheese frosting, with a request for one of Coco Cake's vintage ballerinas! Too cute! Wondering why the picture size is a little funny-- kind of squashed? I will read the manual while lying in bed this evening and hopefully the next batch of pics won't look weirdo.

Mad love,
LS