Cake Story

Last Sunday was my 100 days anniversary with my boyfriend :)

I made reservation at this place that lets you decorate a cake the way you want. You choose the flavor, and they make it the way you want to have it. Generally, kitchens in Korea do not have ovens, and thus, people generally do not bake much. Everything is pretty much fried, or boiled in Korean cuisine anyways. This is why the kind of place I went to can work. In Canada, people would just try their best and bake a yummy cake. In Korea, people don'd bake, so they are satisfied with a cute-looking, not as yummy as a homemade cake. While I was pleasantly surprised with the taste, I was happy to try out the outside-appearance-centered way to 'make' a cake.

The store is situated close to Apkujung station, on the famous Garosu-gil street of expensive coffee shops, plastic surgery and expensive imported goods stores. The area is basically the perfect spot for rich people on dates. It looks nice indeed and I personally did enjoy walking around the area myself, even while being neither rich, nor in couple. But that's another story.

If you want to make reservations, or go see what the place is like, go get a look at their website! They also explain how to get there with pictures and indications.

To call them call the +82-2-512-0971. I have made reservations through a friend, so I am not sure they speak English, so it might be a challenge for people who don't speak Korean, but eh, you're in Korea, give it a try?

The adress is:

548-4 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Sinsa station (Line 3 / Exit 8)

Apgujeong station (Line 3 / Exit 5)

I personally took Apgu, because it's more direct, but if you have plenty of time ahead, I'd suggest the way from Sinsa: get on the Garosu-Gil, and walk all the way down to Forever 21. Get into the small street right next to it. You should find The Cake Story on your left. It is on the 3rd floor of the building.

When you get in, there are tons of cute accessories put in neat rows, and you get a place and tools at your disposal. You pay a basic fee for the cake you want to make, then all the accessories you put on top add to the cost.

While the starting fee is not cheap, starts from US$16 - 30 (and goes from small, medium, two layers, and different choices of topping and filling will slightly change the price), the stuff you buy to put on top is not too expensive. I took tons of them and my base case (US$18) plus the accessories ended up costing mor or less 10USD. Again, the purpose of making this is not to be cheap. You are cheap? bake it at home.

I really liked the variety of random stuff you could choose from. There was so much to pick from that it took most of the time, just choosing what to use in the decorations. I wish I were better, but my cake was not so bad for a first time.

If you tell the employees what kind of cake you want, they will have it ready as you get there, and might be nice for them, and also for the people who might not have made reservations, so you don't wait there and take and empty spot. The place fills up pretty quickly and it's not like you can get kicked out before you finish your cake.

Anyways, in my case, I chose my cake there. Small size, chocolate dough and blueberry filling. They give you the first whipped cream decorating bag with the cake, and you can choose the flavor. I took green tea, but I expected it to be a darker shade of green. If I go again I'll take banana :) It was much darker and I am sure, yummy.

I chose the start-shaped thingy (anyone can help with proper terms?) to make the decorations all around the cake. It was fun. Not as easy as it seems, but certainly fun to use.

I tried off with making the "I love you" letter in cocoa powder. Did you know that to do that you use powder sugar first, to make sure the thing with the writings doesn't stick to the cake? I didn't. It was kind of cool.

They had those sugar signs to stick in the cake, on which you could write on, and I really wanted to get one, but it was a bit big for the cake I chose to make. I didn't want to make it too big because we were only two to eat it anyways, but it was hard to choose stuff for it not to look too intense.

But in the end, I really messed up. At the send, I wanted to put up some more chocolate stuff for the taste, and ruined the overall look, by adding white chocolate chips and coffee beans chocolate chips all around, which drowned the cocoa powder message in overly messy sugar mess.

At that point I wanted to shoot myself. Or the cake. Or both. Or people around me who made nicere ones. Or hide in a hole, so people couldn't see the mess I had created.

But I was not going to give up.

It became a fight between me, reason, and the cake.

I didn't want to waste the time or money I had spent there, and I was not going to admit defeat. I wanted a nice 100 days cake, and I was going to get it. I took cake accessory tweasers and got to work, removing the unwanted decorations (and angrily eating them) one by one.

I still had to fix up my mess in the end, because the frosting had taken a jump down trashy lane. And so, I put a nice piece of cookie on top, as it that had been the plan all along. In the end, I actually like the result, and the cake was both good and decent looking.

This is the end of Yuki's adventures at the cake store.

#TheCakeStory #KoreanBaking #Korea #100days #decoration #garosugil