(upbeat funk music) - Cake is often at the center of celebrations, but it is truly having a moment.

More and more bakeries and home bakers are whipping up creative flavor combinations.

Decorations are artful and eye catching.

And with the rise of small treat culture, having a slice is no longer reserved for special occasions.

At Cake Party more than 100 bakers brought their towering layers and fantastically frosted creations to a sweet cake exchange put on by Seattle influencer, Zoe Kahn.

But before I bake my cake for the potluck, I popped into Paper Cake Shop to get a quick decorating lesson.

I'm Rachel Belle, host of Your Last Meal podcast, cookbook author and long time journalist.

Today on The Nosh, let them, and let us, eat cake.

- Tucked into Seattle's Wallingford-Fremont neighborhood, Paper Cake Shop is co-owned by chef Rachel Yang and pastry chef Gabby Park.

They've reimagined the classic American sheet cake with Asian flavors like yuzu, black sesame and miso caramel.

And it's impossible to resist their whimsical designs.

The few cakes I've decorated have looked like kindergarten projects, so I'm hoping to pick up a few tips.

- [Rachel B.]

Let's start.

Let's frost it.

Show me how.

Because at home, even just doing this didn't come out as good as I wanted it to.

It was a little bit harder than I thought it would be.

- It is a little tricky, I think It's definitely a process where it takes multiple days to create a cake.

So the first day is usually you'll bake the cake and let it cool completely.

We like to put ours in the freezer overnight for maximum like freshness.

And also it's just easier to handle the sponge when it's completely frozen solid.

So that the cake's not just breaking on you and you're like, ahh.

We'll put our initial buttercream in in a piping bag.

I'll put a little layer of buttercream kind of in that like slight gap that you see between the buttercream that's already on the cake and the sponge.

So I'm kind of starting from the center and then just lightly letting the offset spatula graze over the buttercream.

So I'm not pressing down super hard, just kind of pushing it and kind of gently guiding it to where it needs to go.

- I want to go swimming in that it looks so luscious.

I know, or just like, spread it on your face like... - Oh yeah, that too.

(laughing) - So why cake?

- Well, so I guess the question is, why not cake?

Because cake is a place where literally you're putting on layers of flavor.

And for me, doing this fusion Korean American food for so long, it's all about layers.

- How's my angle?

- I would go a little sharper, like right like that.

That's good.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, amazing!

Look at that.

- Yay!

It's so smooth.

- I know, it's so satisfying.

- Talk to me more about your art background, because what you are doing is art.

I've always had, like, an artistic background.

Just like taking art classes outside of school.

And it's kind of like a perfect marriage of things that I like to do.

- Yeah.

- So I decided to go to pastry school after that.

We're going to use this piping tip now, which is also super fun.

Got ridges all around.

And then it has like a little cone in the center.

So it creates like a nice little, like vessel for any sort of like wet garnishes - that you want to do.

- Oh okay, that's your sea anemone.

- Go down just a tiny bit and then gently lift up.

Yeah.

There there you go.

This is like a little bit of like a squiggle tip.

- Yeah.

- So we'll add some of those pink squiggle accents here and there.

- Oh, that one can stand up.

- Yeah.

Isn't that fun?

- It's really fun.

- It's got a little height to it And I just love this color combo to like, pink, yellow and orange.

- [Rachel Y] Just really happy colors.

- [Gabby] Yeah, happy colors.

I'm going to just... - Get down there.

- Get down, squat a little bit.

(laughing) - And then I'll start at one end here and I'm going to do a little swirl.

- Yeah.

So steady hands are kind of useful.

- Yeah and strong thighs.

- Strong thighs, you know.

Yeah.

And then now we can fill our anemones with our POG gelée.

It's so yummy.

Super tart.

We use passionfruit purée and guava purée.

And then we cook that with agar agar.

- Every step is so satisfying to watch.

- Isn't that fun?

- Yes.

Tell me about the name.

Where did paper cake come from?

- Yeah.

It's really kind of our space for creativity.

You know, we kind of.

It's a blank space for us to kind of create something really kind of fun and amazing, but also kind of collection of paper, creates layers into stories.

And so this is our storytelling.

- Behold, it's a garden now.

Oh my God, I love this.

Thank you so much for showing me.

I actually feel like my cake is going to be so much cuter now.

- Okay, awesome.

- I'm really looking forward to seeing the cake.

- I am too.

(bossanova music) - When Seattle content creator Zoe Kahn opened registration for Cake Party, it sold out in seconds and crashed the website.

The event was inspired by Cake Picnic, a viral public cake potluck started by San Francisco home baker Elisa Sunga.

The record for most cakes brought is 2,068.

In Seattle, bakers were required to bring a cake and pay a small fee, a fundraiser for the Ballard Food Bank.

I made a lemon olive oil cake with roasted apricot basil purée and sour cream cream cheese buttercream, colored yellow and pink with turmeric and freeze-dried strawberries.

Yeah.

I'm fancy.

(classical music) Each wave of bakers has eight minutes to grab as much cake as they want.

And if hearing that makes you anxious, don't worry.

There is plenty to go around.

- [Zoe] Welcome to the Cake Party.

(cheers) There will be three waves of about 40 people each.

You'll have eight minutes to select your slices.

- [Announcer] Three.

Two.

One.

Go.

(upbeat percussion music) - You know what you got?

- I kind of blacked out, but there's a lot here.

There's, like.

I made sure to get some lemon poppy seed because I love poppy seed.

I got a strawberry milkshake cake.

- Oh, I got that one, too.

So how did this all come about?

Where did the idea come from?

- So I saw all the photos of the very viral Cake Picnic in S.F.

and I was like, this is so cool.

Like, this would be amazing to do here.

The whole point of this is to lean into community.

An event of this style is like the more the merrier.

- So funny, because it's such a basic concept.

- I know.

- It's basically a public potluck.

- Yes.

- Why do you think that it is hitting in this way?

Why is it making people so excited?

- Yeah, I think people need like joy right now.

They need to feel playful.

They need like that surprise and delight moment.

- It's brought a lot of joy to a lot of people.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

This brought a lot of joy to me.

Seriously, I can feel all of my... - The tingly?

- happy chemicals, like just sitting in that room.

Like being surrounded by cake.

So.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

See, when I do it, I'm making more marks.

Maybe I need to go a little bit... - It's okay.

And you can just push it some a little bit more towards.

Yeah.

This part here, that's a little bit... - I hear Salt-N-Pepa in my ears now.

Push it real good.

- Push it real good.

- Yeah.

- I'm going to do it.