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“So you paid $35 for a bunch of cake?” - Mike
”No! It was so much more than that.” - Me
Cake Picnic—held yesterday at the Legion of Honor Museum all the way on the north-west side of San Francisco—was about community. It was a huge group of people (over 1000!) that love to bake. Specifically, for this event, bake cakes.
I brought my 12-year-old son Zane to the party; he baked his own chocolate coffee birthday cake for the occasion; I woke up at 4am like a real baker and made my tried-and-true peach cake. We did a great job with out cakes and definitely used the best ingredients. Out cakes were tasty. But after seeing what our friends at Cake Picnic could whip up I think next time I’ll put a boost into the decorations. Food really is so visual!!
The event was about trust. It was basically a bunch of strangers that baked cakes, listed all the allergens on tags stuck into the cakes, and lovingly made to showcase a general appreciation of the art of color, flavors mixed in with the vibe of a carnival potluck. We all signed a waiver that no matter what happened, we were making a choice to live dangerously—there were were a few things that would be a little suspicious as I recently got my CA food handler’s license.
Now, I’ve always considered myself a pie girl with cake love sitting on the fringes, but after my first Cake Picnic I feel like pie is the girl next door, but when it comes to a real celebration, cakes are the queens.
The experience of having 5 minutes to grab as many cake slices as I could was a fantastic, fun adventure that took all my concentration and absorbed me in all my senses. While dodging other people with large white bakery boxes precariously balanced on single hands and the edges of tables, scanning to see if a cake was labeled with a name or ingredients that seemed appealing and then adding a slice to my box with a thin knife while the cake was often falling apart was quite a challenge.
In an age where people count calories and steps, avoid too many sweets and increasingly take medications to rapidly lose weight, this event felt rebellious. Yes, I am doing what I want on this day because I’m celebrating; back to normal healthy scheduling later.
Finally, I loved how in an era of influencers and social media promotion, only two or three of the cakes had tags or self-promotion on them. This was a community event with no motive of selling yourself, but giving the best of yourself for the love of food and cake and all that is good about making food for other to enjoy.






Thank you for this bright spot and for sharing photos of so many gorgeously decorated cakes. It's encouraging that so many bakers participated in this community event.