Mark's modern-vintage red and white birthday cakes!

Liz ordered this super cute red and white themed fondant cake for her husband Mark's 50th birthday, and 50 sweet and simple red and white themed vanilla cupcakes for staff to enjoy as well. Liz and Mark are two very amazing people who do truly remarkable things here in Vancouver. They are tireless and extremely hardworking advocates for the continual improvement of the lives of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside residents, through the founding and development of the almost-20 year old Portland Hotel Society. Read about it through the link!

Happy 50th Birthday Mark - I hope you had a super fantastic birthday, and all the best in your milestone birthday year!

Lyndsay :)

The Bird Is The Word - Penguin Cake, Owl Cake

Penguin or owl - which would you rather be? Huddled in Arctic cold, waddling about with a ripping icy sheet wind blasting straight at your beak, but diving and gliding through water gorging on squid like a hot knife through ice cream? Or... burrowed in a tall tree, the night is your freedom, soaring wings through night air, glaring down at a scurrying mouse which will soon be a raw feast of fur and flesh in your talons?

Or... penguin faced cake with a TEDDY BEAR AND TWO OTHER MINI PENGUINS SITTING ON YOUR HEAD. This was the cutest request ever from my little buddies Kai and Xian- last year I made their birthday cakes - they wanted to order a special birthday cake (with the help of their mom Corrine, of course!) for their Dad! So sweet and so cute.

And... an owl cake for Maddy's birthday, ordered by her mom Miranda! I loved doing both of these cakes... both chocolate with fondant decorations. Bird cuteness all around.

I think I would choose to be a penguin, stone cold chilling on a block of ice with a crew of buddies eating sashimi. Or wait, would I rather be an owl, moving swiftly and surely from tree to tree in the night sky, eating mouse carpaccio??

Thanks Corrine and Miranda for the fun orders!

xo Lyndsay

Happy Ruffly Pink Weekend!

This cake reminds me of a ruffle-puff pink bathing cap that perhaps a lovely, languid synchronized swimmer would wear gliding her way through a flowery water dance, or a cute little furry pillbox hat on top of a stylish head of sleek hair. There was a time when I used to dress crazier than I do now. Now my style is much more mellow. I think I will dress crazy one day again - when I'm an old Chinese lady with silvery white grey hair cut into an angular haircut, wearing a giant avant-garde blazer and a super weird and expensive pair of interesting Italian-made eyeglasses. That's how I've always imagined I would look when I'm old. But hey, maybe I'll just be wearing green flannelette jogging pants and a really comfortable, warm sweater with an even warmer, more comfortable sweater vest on top of that.

Back to the cake - I love this cake!! A 9 inch round beauty, with tinted-pink interior vanilla cake layers, raspberry jam and light pink buttercream exterior. Doug ordered this for his girlfriend Azita's 26th birthday... pretty great!

Happy Birthday Azita! Hope you loved your ruffle cake.

Next Stop on the Coco Cake Express! River's Cutie Train Birthday

Lookit this cutie pie train cake I made for River's 5th birthday party! I have been so lucky to make many delightful cakes and cupcakes for this lovely family's birthday parties. This might be on of my favourites thusfar though... I think it's due to the cute little faces on the engine and the caboose, and the cute red, blue, brown and white colour theme!

Dark chocolate cupcakes and Berry Good cupcakes with fresh raspberries, the cupcakes all scooched up together in rows, made up the train body.

I'm Mr. Happy Caboose Face! Look at my cute little cupcake train wheels!

This engine's been up all night, his eyes are baggy from too much choo-choo-ing...

Happy Birthday River! Custom flag I made!

Choo choo chee choo!

And sweet little vintage-looking gingham cupcake liners too.

Side view! Train cake attack!

And the cutest River in front of his special cake... Happy Birthday, River! And thank you Sarah for the fun order!

xo Lyndsay

Leftover Cake Parfait and Family Memories

My grandpa (who we called Gonge-gonge) was very tall for a Chinese man, over 6 feet tall and movie-star handsome, to boot! He had a wonderful, good-natured charm and a hilarious sense of humour. I remembered him as pretty quiet, always happy and putting Ketchup on absolutely everything he ate. Every year for Christmas I would try and buy him the most ridiculous gift possible, such as a toilet paper roll holder that tinkled out a tinny version of "Greensleeves" every time you reached for a few sheets. When we were kids we got to go for nice dinners at the golf club in which my grandfather belonged. Crisp iceberg lettuce salad bar with croutons, glasses of soda and endless baskets of buttery, parsley-speckled garlic bread, our favourite. For dinner, sometimes it was prime rib with a perfect puff of Yorkshire pudding, and for dessert - the coveted creme de menthe ice cream parfait! Layers of bright green minty syrup and vanilla ice cream, a crisp-thin triangle wafer cookie tucked into a top layer of whipped cream, then topped with a shiny maraschino cherry.

We had our friend Marc over for dinner last week - I made a butternut squash and roasted cauliflower Rogan Josh curry served with cold plain yogurt and toasted salty cashews. For dessert, the three of us shared a leftover chocolate cake parfait topped with a fresh raspberry. While it wasn't quite prime rib buffet at the golf club in 1987, it did quite nicely, and reminded me of my beloved Gonge-gonge.

xo