Featured Image: Cake sensation Amy Yip.
Can you tell me about your background and how you came into cake making?
My parents are bakers so I grew up in that world and I saw how much work it was and I really did not want to do it, I really wanted to get as far away as possible. I have always been creative since I was little, always drawing stuff and I had two older sisters who were really creative, so I feel like that also guided me. I enrolled in art school in New Zealand, and did that for a few years, and then I decided I wanted to study fashion design. I ended up in San Francisco studying a BFA in fashion at the Academy of Arts and then I discovered textile design and fell in love with that even more. After I graduated in 2016, I started my career as a textile designer, working for Club Monaco (then owned by Ralph Lauren). I only left my job two months ago and it was during the pandemic that I started baking.
Why did you start baking during this time, was it just to keep you busy during isolation?
Yeah, because I wanted to pass the time. Friends were requesting them, people wanted to make birthdays more special because you could only have these small gatherings. I remember having a zoom birthday, it was so sad. I was making one, and then two, then three cakes. A year ago I wasn’t even getting orders every week, and now I’m booked out for months and I have to turn down so many people. It’s kind of a good problem to have. But I think I need to scale up.
What is it about your unique style that you’ve developed that makes your cakes so popular?
I think it was what about two years ago when I was just making round cakes with some flowers, and then I said to myself ‘oh I really love rocks’, so I started making these rock shaped pavlovas and experimenting with different textures, something a little more unconventional. I love collecting rocks, I collect them when I travel on hikes and from the beach. There’s this place in New Zealand called Crystal Mountain where my mum took me once. I didn’t know that rocks could be so different. There’s very interesting, unique rocks with crazy colours and textures. I started figuring out how I could carve the cakes so that they had that sculptural shape and also be structurally sound.
Do you think there is a difference between what you do and what a sculptor or an installation artist does?
I think the only difference is that my work is temporary, it’s consumed. So, I feel like the amount of time and the design elements and creativity involved in creating this object is just the same. And I do come from that art background, so there is that understanding of the context. I think for me, because they are essentially cakes, and cakes for specific occasions, there is the element of serving a purpose – it has to be consumed. I am so satisfied when I create this beautiful thing, I photograph it, and then I don’t get to spend much time with it, it’s taken away. This temporary nature of the cake is poetic. Coming from a fashion design background, I really wanted to bring in my understanding of fashion design, colours, patterns and textiles into it too.
The flavours of your cakes are often Asian inspired. Why is this, and what are some of your favourites?
I’m Chinese and one third Vietnamese, so I grew up eating a lot of different Asian foods. My parents are bakers in coffee shops that are not named after them. They chose Western names for their cafes to make it more palatable for the locals. I decided to name my company/studio after my dad’s, and my own, surname. I was made fun of as a kid because of my last name and I also lived in parts of New Zealand where there weren’t a lot of Asian people and I always felt marginalised. Now, living in New York, seeing all of these Asian creators rising up and doing amazing things, I want to be part of that. My flavours include matcha passionfruit, yuzu shiso and oolong rose lychee, mixing a lot of tea flavours with the sweetness and tartness of fruits is a big thing.
You also incorporate flowers into your cakes. What does this element bring to your work?
I feel like including flowers makes sense because the cake itself is referencing something organic – a rock. And flowers are so delicate, it’s kind of a contrast of different shapes, colours, and textures. Studying textile design I was working with a lot of florals, so I feel an inclination towards them. There’s a lot of thought behind the flowers in each cake. The specific kind of flower, its shape, the way it moves, where I place it and how I even prepare the flower to be placed in the cake as well.
Do you have any upcoming projects?
I can’t say too much, but I have a few projects underway, one with the shoe company Vans and another with the Noguchi Museum in New York. And then over the next few months I’m like really looking for a proper space to work out of.
Are there any artists or creatives on your radar?
I am obsessed with HEVEN, they’re glassblowers and they made the most coveted handbag in the world right now, it’s a glass handbag.
Where do you see your work heading?
I’m considering offering the cakes as collections the way that fashion is offered. So, presenting the cakes as a collection for the season which people can order from.