Birthday Cake
A memoir on birthdays and cakes. Featuring a Hong Kong classic, mixed fruit cream cake (雜果忌廉蛋糕).
I don’t normally celebrate my birthday. At least, not in an exuberant way. I didn’t grow up having birthday parties. No bowling, pizza, decorations, or sending out invitations. My childhood birthdays were void of balloons, streamers and friends. Instead, birthdays were always treated as close family affairs, which meant a simple dinner and cake. Cake being the thing I looked forward to most.
My most beloved cake remains to be a Chinese-bakery classic: zaap gwo gei leem daan go (雜果忌廉蛋糕), a mixed fruit cream cake. Inside, a cornucopia of fresh fruit embedded between layers of sweet cream and chiffon sponge. On the outside, whipped cream piped and combed around the cake with utmost precision, adorned with more fruit and chocolate decorations. Despite three years of professional baking experience and two years of culinary education, I still have no idea how they do it. How do they achieve a perfectly moist sponge, supple and soft yet able to support the weight of all the delicious, meaty fruit inside? Honestly, it’s perfection.
I would have never imagined myself reminiscing so much about cake. I think I may have taken it for granted: three year-old me would’ve never guessed that a cake like this would be rare to come by later on in life. Cake that can manifest smiles and warm fuzzies just by thought. The workmanship and whimsy unique to Chinese-bakery cakes is what makes them memorable. Fruit animated with chocolate smilies, images of Hello Kitty’s face drawn with piping gel, greetings and messages written in bright-red. Iconic and expressive—for me, zaap gwo gei leem daan go is a time capsule of simpler joys.
This year, I celebrated my 24th birthday. My parents made a trip down from the suburbs to my apartment in the city and brought with them an elegant mixed fruit cream cake. My eyes lit up and my jaw dropped open. I can’t recall the last time they bought a cake like this for me—it made me feel like a kid again. This year, I reached a milestone cutting cake in this apartment for the very first time. Friends who came over the next day joined me in eating leftover cake. For the first time in a very long time, I had a happy birthday.
During my youth my family was dysfunctional to a degree. If I were to describe the dynamic and closeness of my family using a type of rice as an analogy, it would be the furthest thing from sushi rice, where the grains stick and bind to each other. We were more like basmati rice—separated grains, nothing to really hold us together. Holidays and birthdays incited obligatory family gatherings which would force us to congregate (awkwardly and reluctantly). I don’t intend to make it sound sad, it was just the nature of our family dynamic. But at least we had those few occasions to corral us into some form of wholeness. Holidays and birthdays were the only times we tried.
My parents never splurged their money on material things or objects. Dinners were what they splurged on. Oysters, lobster two-ways, chilli crab and crab roe fried rice, geoduck, abalone and clams. Delicacies my parents introduced to me at a young age that was indicative of a special occasion. Fighting for the check at the end of the meal among the adults was a custom, and sneaking off to secretly settle the bill by pretending to “go use the washroom” was a strategy we all knew too well.
Silently I grew resentful of how we celebrated my birthdays. Eight year-old me wanted pizza lunch in a rented party room. I wanted the option to go bowling with my friends. I wanted to watch a movie at the theatres and play laser tag. I wanted to do all the things I watched my peers do for their birthdays.
Birthdays highlighted how I felt different and excluded from my friends at school. I felt ashamed and embarrassed by my family’s lack of enthusiasm. At the time, I couldn’t understand why I was the only kid whose parents’ didn’t provide the class with a pizza lunch or least two dozen Tim Hortons donuts for breakfast. It was a clash between my hunger to fit in at a school (a place that made up my entire social life at that age) and my parents’ understanding of celebration. There is an implication that bringing favours for your classmates on your birthday is a display and measure of how much your parents love you. This unspoken pressure to integrate and longing to belong never fazed my parents. They were unconcerned about how my peers perceived us. What was important to them was what we did as a family. What I valued at eight years-old and what I value now at twenty-four has evolved, and my heart has grown ten times bigger in recognition of all the nuances that come with how we love one another. How silly it sounds now looking back, wanting pizza over lobster.
Food is a love language. JD, one of my best friends of 5 years, couldn’t be here for my birthday, but he was able to come over a couple days before to pre-celebrate. Both tired from our day, I suggested to order-in and just catch up at the apartment instead. I bought dinner and he bought dessert: two slices of cheesecake and a mini waffle. We talked, ran karaoke, and talked some more until it was time for him to go. Sadly, the cakes were left uneaten that night. Time was up and he had to go home to pack for a flight he had to catch the next morning. I ended up sharing a slice of cheesecake with my dad and eating the other on my own a few days afterward. I’ve never had anything pandan flavoured until now—it was bright green, borderline glowing. I had to post it on Instagram.
I received a reply to my pandan cheesecake post, “A love language” my friend wrote back. Joel was right, it was a language of love. As a dessert person, seeing someone acknowledge a humble slice of cheesecake, free from any deeper context, as a gesture of love touches my heart. I used to work at a custom cake shop as an assistant baker and decorator. The best part about being a cake decorator was knowing whoever placed the order did so because they deemed someone to be special and celebration-worthy. Similarly, when I choose to bake for someone it is a demonstration of my care for them. It’s me saying, “I made this for you and hope it brings you happiness.” It is a labor of my love. JD letting me order any dessert my heart desired, my roommate taking me out to a special birthday dinner, and my parents making the trip down with my favourite cake, are all gestures of love. Food is a love language we all speak and understand.
Why do we like what we like? What makes zaap gwo gei leem daan go my favourite cake? Within this entire piece, the question still remains of what makes this cake an object of such meaningful pleasure.
Developing taste is a matter of developing presence, because taste is a collection of things that bring you joy. The inputs that light you up—that make you feel something. But you can only tap into those feelings when you’re paying attention—when you’re in the moment, tuning in.
from on slowness, taste, and living well by Mind Mine.
Historically, zaap gwo gei leem daan go was relief from the vast pain, stress and sorrow that made up the bulk of my childhood. In the present, cake brings me joy because it is a cause for sharing. It doesn’t need fancy ingredients or fillings, or glitzy gold or glitter. Eggs, flour, sugar, some whipped cream and fruit. Good company, a serrated knife, some plates and forks. My longing to belong and foster camaraderie is still a desire that burns bright. And cake is a perfect device to call people to gather.
You unlocked memories for me. That is a gift in itself. Thank you for sharing your experience with birthdays, cause I truly feel the same, almost word for word. Love all of your work, and your writing is the type of art I've been craving for. My proximity to you and your life makes reading all of this so much sweeter. Thank you for being you 🫂🛹