Meet Phoebe Pham, 33, maker of cakes you won't find in the case at your local supermarket. Based in Garden Grove, not far from Disneyland Park, Pham bakes family-friendly custom cakes and the kind of custom cakes other bakers refuse to make. Those illicit, sometimes explicit cakes can be found on her (warning: clicking on this link may result in some NSFW cake content) Cali Cake Dealers Instagram page, where an artfully decorated cake might feature a stoned unicorn, a line of (fake) cocaine, a money-counting machine, a bottle of Promethazine, a pair of butt cheeks, or a gun. Through her shrewdly-chosen hashtags, like #traplife, #gangstercake, and #litbarbiecake, Pham's cake-baking business has spun off a side business selling cakes that cater to customers turned away by other bakeries and who want something more interesting than, say, a teddy bear on a birthday cake.
This cake, which Pham made for a customer who, she says, wanted to celebrate a gang anniversary, features a gun, money, and fake cocaine.Courtesy Phoebe Pham
"For as long as I could remember, I was always into art stuff," Pham says. But a few years ago, when she was a project accountant at a construction company with a two-hour-a-day commute, she realized that she wanted to do something more creative. She quit her full-time job to spend more time with her kids and her husband and enrolled in the one-year patisserie program at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena. Unable to find custom cakes she liked for her kids, she started making her own, and after she graduated, she started Sweet Escape to create family-friendly cakes--think birthdays, baby showers, and bridal parties--in a business she runs out of her garage (like someone else). One customer asked for an "adult" cake, but when she posted the photo of that cake to her Sweet Escape Instagram page, she lost (presumably offended) followers. So she launched an Instagram page for Cali Cake Dealers, where she posts photos of her less traditional, custom-made cakes for her less-easily-offended customers.
Pham can charge a premium for making the cakes other bakers won't bake.Courtesy Phoebe Pham
Take, for example, a recent cake that was requested by a woman who wanted a gang-themed cake for a gang anniversary. The top tier reads "aint nothin but a g thang," and it's adorned with $100 bills, a Nighthawk gun, and little blue packets that contain simulated white powder. "Everything is 100% edible," Pham explains. That "cocaine"? Edible white paint. The little blue baggies? Fondant. "You can eat the bullets, you can eat the little Xanies," she says, using the slang term for Xanax. She made the gun out of fondant, using images sourced online, and made the money using edible ink and a sugar sheet with a printer she uses expressly for her edible projects. The gangster cake took about 11 hours to make, and the customer paid $325 for it. According to Pham, she can charge more for cakes that other cake-makers may be less willing to create.
Another cake, atop which lounges a passed-out unicorn, was for a client who "is all about that trap life," says Pham. The "weed" at the base of the cake is shredded, sweetened coconut painted with edible paint, and the "cocaine" is shredded coconut that was put in a blender. She sold the cake for $290, and the buyer "loved it." Another baker might be worried about their branding if they bake an "illicit" cake, but Pham isn't worried. "I grew up with people who have always been in the trap life, who have always been associated with gangs, or what not," she says. "I'm not afraid of that type of lifestyle." So far, she says, she hasn't turned down a cake. She works with customers on the design, sending a sketch before she makes it, and is paid in full before baking starts.
Pham made this cake for a "trap lord," she says.Courtesy Phoebe Pham
Another customer got a cake shaped like a money counter next to a bag of faux "weed" for his birthday. "He's also a big time trap lord," Pham recalls. The fake weed is actually chocolate, and Pham is careful to point out that while her cakes may sometimes resemble illicit substances, they don't contain any.
Nowadays, Instagram provides small business owners with an opportunity to get the same reach as chain stores, and it's all about creating something unusual, a vision that might go viral. Hashtags help her customers find her online. Who is she to judge how someone wants to celebrate, whether it's a birthday or a gang party? "I bring people's vision to life," Pham says. That she's earning more money baking family-friendly and not-so-family-friendly cakes than she did as an accountant makes it all the sweeter.
"I bring people's vision to life," Pham says.Courtesy Phoebe Pham
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