Dream Cake
This cake is the beginning of my story — the one that sparked a long love affair with Hawaiian bakery-style cakes. When I first moved from Hawaii to California, I was fresh out of college and eager for adventure, but suddenly I found myself missing home: the people, the weather, and especially the unique cakes that were part of island life. The contrast between warm summer evenings back home and the unexpected heat in my new city only made me crave those familiar flavors more.
Guava Chiffon Cake
Guava chiffon cake was one of my earliest cravings. I would find myself daydreaming about the delicate guava flavor and the soft, airy chiffon texture, wishing I could recreate that exact taste. Back then, guava chiffon and other island favorites weren’t something I could find easily in California, and store-bought attempts never quite matched the bakery quality I remembered.
Peach Bavarian Cake
Peach Bavarian cake was another vivid memory: a light custard-like frosting studded with tiny pieces of peach, cooling and settling into every bite. These flavors felt refined and homey at once — the kind of cake you’d pick up from a local bakery for a special occasion, or sometimes just because it was Tuesday and life called for something sweet.
Haupia Chiffon Cake
Haupia chiffon combined the silky texture of coconut pudding with the lightness of chiffon cake, and it was a staple at family gatherings and celebrations. Bakery boxes were a regular presence in our refrigerator when I visited home, often filled with several different cakes — little edible reunions waiting for me. A homemade cake was comforting, but a bakery-made cake had a distinct, polished flavor and texture that I chased for years.
Chantilly Cake
Some of my favorite bakeries included King’s Bakery, Liliha Bakery, and Kapiolani Bakery. Over the years, those names became shorthand for the kinds of cakes I missed: light, well-balanced, and thoughtfully finished. Today, only one of those bakeries—Liliha Bakery—still operates in Hawaii, while King’s Bakery moved to Southern California long ago. Even so, distance didn’t stop me from yearning for those flavors.
For a long time I searched for authentic recipes. I found similar versions here and there, but they were rarely right and often required hours of complicated work. I love to bake, but I also value simplicity and minimal cleanup; I wanted recipes that produced bakery-quality results without a day’s worth of effort and an armful of dirty dishes.
After about a decade away from home, I began developing my own recipes and techniques. I focused on creating straightforward base cakes that could be adapted into multiple island-style creations: guava chiffon, haupia chiffon, peach Bavarian, chantilly, and the dream cake that started it all. Friends and family loved the results and asked for them again and again. Making these favorites accessible and reliable became my goal.
Over nearly fourteen years in California, I’ve refined those recipes, recreated beloved classics, and experimented with new variations inspired by Hawaiian bakery traditions. Encouraged by friends and family, I’m now working on a cake book to share these recipes and the stories behind them. Along the way I’ll continue to write about food and life, and I’ll include occasional updates about the book project. If you’d like to be notified when the book is ready, you can sign up for news and announcements.
These cakes are more than desserts to me; they’re a connection to home, to family gatherings, and to the flavors that shaped my childhood. Recreating them in a simple, approachable way has been a joyful challenge — one that I look forward to sharing with anyone who wants a taste of Hawaiian bakery-style cakes at home.