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Dear Harley Cake Studio's founders Alison Chan
and Cony Lam came up with the idea after baking a custom cake
for Chan's nephew, who loves bananas: a thin layer of yellow
fondant wrapped around dark chocolate and Italian meringue
butter cream.
Posting such creations on social media brought a new wave of
customers to their shop, prompting them to switch the focus of
their business to special orders and workshops for wannabe cake
illusionists.
Now they can make-to-order cakes that look uncannily like almost
anything, from a pair of flip-flops to sea-urchin sashimi or
even a dish sponge.
"This illusion cake wave is ... kind of saving our business,"
Chan said.
From a crisis level of three-to-four weekly orders during March
and April, the studio is now receiving 15-20 orders a week. An
illusion cake costs at least HK$1,500 ($194), with some going
for HK$12,000-HK$13,000.
“I’m personally super thrilled that we have reached this stage
... We never expected that this will blow up," Chan said.
"We were just making things that we love, we love baking, we
love cake decorating, and we are just making things for fun.”
Customer Chase Ko attended one of Dear Harley Cake Studio's
private classes to learn how to make custom cakes for her
boyfriend's birthday.
"My boyfriend likes Japanese food and Pokemon a lot. Their sushi
illusion cake is very cute so I want to design another version
with dolls on top of the rice,” Ko said.
($1 = 7.7500 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Yoyo Chow; Editing by Marius Zaharia and Stephen
Coates)
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