Elisa Sunga Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everyone, you are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from the Cherry Bombe office in Downtown Manhattan.
Today's guest is Elisa Sunga, the founder of the phenomenon known as Cake Picnic. The most recent Cake Picnic held last month in San Francisco featured more than 1,000 guests and more than 1,000 cakes. The main rule of Cake Picnic is simple: “No cake, no entry.” Today, Elisa has folks DMing and emailing her from around the world asking her to host a Cake Picnic in their cities, and she already has, ready for this, a waiting list of more than 6,000 people for her upcoming Cake Picnic in New York. We talk about the Cake Picnic origin story, Elisa's day job in UX at Google, her Instagram alter ego, the Bucket List Bake Club that she co-founded, how Christina Tosi taught her how to bake, and how Cake Picnic taps into a desire for joy and community. Stay tuned for my chat with Elisa Sunga.
Today's show is presented by Olivo Amigo founded by Gloria Molist. Gloria is an olive oil sommelier from Spain who founded Olivo Amigo to make food fun, simple, and healthy. Her mission is rooted in bringing people closer to high-quality, always fresh extra virgin olive oil made from early harvested green olives and grown on small family farms in Spain. These extra virgin olive oils are rich in both flavor and health benefits. To complete the taste of Spain, Gloria later introduced a bold balsamic vinegar from California, and vibrant Mediterranean spices that capture the essence of her homeland in every drop and sprinkle. Check them out at olivoamigo.com and taste the difference a little love and a whole lot of expertise can make.
Founder Gloria is an official Cherry Bombe member. If you'd like to be an official Bombesquad member, visit cherrybombe.com for all the details and perks, like discounts on Jubilee tickets and invites to our monthly member meetings. The Bombesquad is an amazing community and we'd love for you to be part of it.
Now let's check in with today's guest. Elisa Sunga, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Elisa Sunga:
Hi, Kerry. Hi, Cherry Bombe. Thank you so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
We are so thrilled to have you on the show because you are America's cake queen right now. Everyone is obsessed with Cake Picnic.
Elisa Sunga:
Oh, my gosh. If you asked me that 11 months ago or told me that this was going to happen, I would've looked at you in such disbelief.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell everybody in your own words, what is Cake Picnic?
Elisa Sunga:
Cake Picnic is my dream come true, short and sweet, but to expand on that a little bit more, Cake Picnic is a community cake potluck. So the idea of the event is it's a potluck for everyone. So if you are a pastry chef at a restaurant or if you're a home baker, let's get together and eat a lot of cake. So the only requirement for this is you must bring a whole cake. No cake, no entry. So everyone comes together for this cake potluck, an extra large cake potluck.
Kerry Diamond:
No cake, no entry has become the mantra, right?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. I love it because in the beginning it was such a new concept for the event that I was getting so many questions of, "Does my plus one need to bring a cake? Does my child need to bring a cake? Does my dog need to bring a cake?" And at that time when I started the event, I was so intent that every human being, if you're a living, breathing person, you should bring a cake. And I had to think of a way to just boil it down into such simple terms of, “No cake, no entry.”
Kerry Diamond:
I know. You need that embroidered on a pillow, right? But you said pastry chefs, home bakers, but you can buy a cake and bring it too, right?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, yes. I am also a huge fan of grocery store cakes. I was like, "I would love to eat those cakes too. And so bring them to the picnic and let's enjoy all of them together."
Kerry Diamond:
I thought you were going to say you're a huge fan of Ina Garten and store-bought is fine.
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, everything. As long as it's cake, it's good.
Kerry Diamond:
People might be surprised to learn that Cake Picnic is not your day job.
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah. So outside of Cake Picnic and saltedrye and baking, I am a UX program manager at Google. I've been there for almost 10 years. It'll be 10 years in June, so it's going to be quite a long time. But in that role, in my 9:00 to 5:00, I work on community and culture, working on bringing designers, researchers together in community. And so there is a lot of parallels with Cake Picnic, which I really enjoy. And you can see, I lean into that a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
Folks might not know what UX means. Can you tell us?
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah. UX is user experience. So I work with a team that thinks about your experience looking at an app. How does it look? What are the interfaces? Does it make sense when you go through a flow of checking your email or signing in? How does that look and does it logically make sense?
Kerry Diamond:
So do you look at the world as a UX designer?
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah, I do. I think I look at everything as an opportunity to think about the design of it, the experience of it. When I'm making a cake, that's a whole user experience, right? It's like, "What are the flavors? How do I bake the cake? What does it look like? How does it feel when you eat it? What does it taste like?" And then that also lends itself to Cake Picnic, right? It's like an event.
So, what is your experience as a user when you're buying a ticket, which is kind of insane right now, and then attending the event? What happens at a Cake Picnic? How much time do you get to take cake slices, all the way to what does a cake box look like? What size is that?
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it's nice that you're thinking through all those details because that makes it more seamless for the guests and they get to enjoy themselves more. But as you were talking about that, I was like, "Gosh, the world needs a UX designer because the world is not an easy place to navigate."
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, I agree.
Kerry Diamond:
Does it frustrate you as you navigate your way across the city or the world?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. I think there's moments when I'm just like, "This could be just so much easier, or more intentional thought here would be great."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, we're lucky that you're putting all that intention against Cake Picnic. You first came to Cherry Bombe's attention through your beautiful Instagram account, saltedrye. Who and what is saltedrye?
Elisa Sunga:
I look at saltedrye as my creative baking portfolio. Because a lot of the work I do leads towards design, I think that shows up in all elements of my life. So in March 2020, along with most of the world, I started baking. At that time it was sourdough. So for weeks, I was baking a lot of sourdough until I realized, or stopped myself and I was like, "Wait a minute. I don't even love sourdough that much. Why am I baking so much sourdough bread?"
And so I was like, "What do I actually want to eat?" At that time it was cake and doughnuts, so I started baking a lot of cakes and doughnuts. And I'm a home baker, just taught myself with YouTube videos, Instagram videos and cookbooks. And so along that way, started to bake.
And saltedrye, also was a big fundraising project for me in the very beginning, too. I raised almost $30,000 for various social justice organizations. For almost two years, for every month, I would make pastry boxes and use it as a fundraiser for a different organization. And each month I would challenge myself to choose a different one so that I was kind of sharing the love and spreading the knowledge about the different organizations and causes happening everywhere.
Kerry Diamond:
That's incredible. Were you doing that as part of Bakers Against Racism or just doing it on your own?
Elisa Sunga:
Just doing it on my own, but definitely very inspired by Bakers Against Racism. That was a huge project that was going on, and I think seeing what they were doing inspired me to also ask myself, "What can I do as a person who just likes to bake? What can I do to also help out with the social justice causes?"
Kerry Diamond:
I should explain, we talk about Bakers Against Racism so much, I just assume everybody knows what it is. But it was a movement essentially, co-founded by pastry chef Paola Velez after George Floyd was murdered, encouraging people to bake and sell what they were making to raise money for causes related to, like you said, social justice, fighting racism, things like that.
So incredible, and speaks to the power of all you bakers out there, all you incredible folks. So tell me though, did you bake before the pandemic or were you really a-
Elisa Sunga:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Elisa Sunga:
I would bake Betty Crocker mixes here and there, but I was not a baker before the pandemic.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you grow up with people who cooked and baked?
Elisa Sunga:
Well, I grew up in the Philippines, and so growing up in the Philippines, desserts was sweet rice. And so to me, dessert was a sticky, sweet rice. And so coming to the United States when I was 12, it was learning about what Funfetti was and what a cupcake was. And so I was like, "What is this new world that's unlocked to me?"
And so this sweet world, I think I'm a bit late to the game. So I think there's some part of me that is trying to catch up with everyone. So I have this voracious appetite, I guess, that I was trying to fill, and slowly I'm doing that now with Cake Picnic.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. Did you know that The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network has the number one baking podcast in the U.S.? We do, and it's called She's My Cherry Pie. Each Saturday, baker, cookbook author, and recipe developer Jessie Sheehan talks to the sweetest bakers and pastry chefs around, and takes a deep dive into their signature bakes.
If you've been wanting to level up your baking skills, this show is for you. Tune in for expert tips and tricks from guests like Claudia Fleming, Natasha Pickowicz, Zoë François, Christina Tosi, and so many more. Find She's My Cherry Pie on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget, subscribe so you never miss an episode.
As saltedrye, your baking alter ego, you developed such an aesthetic so fast and that's what caught our eye. You were just making these beautiful bakes and the whole team, every few days when you would post something were like, "Ah, did you see what saltedrye put on Instagram today?"
Elisa Sunga:
Oh, yeah. And I think that was even possible because during the pandemic, I think the first six to eight months, I was just baking so much. I think I was spending 30 to 40 hours baking. I think there was just some release that I was looking for with baking that, it was really powerful and kind of healing at that time.
And so a year in, I had so much content that I could post every day for at least two years without baking anything. And so I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." I started to color coordinate my Instagram feed because I had so much content that I had a moment where I was like, "Oh, I can color coordinate because I have so much in the backlog."
So I started to slowly do that, and along the way I started to adopt that more of as a challenge to myself, or a criteria for my baking because one of the things I love about baking is that there's so many opportunities. The world is your oyster. The canvas is totally yours, is you could make whatever combination, flavors and you can make so many decisions. But I thought to myself, "What if the criteria was a color? Would that restrict it enough where I could still flex my creativity and it would push me to think about flavors in a different way?"
Because I think that if you were baking today and you were in your kitchen, you were like, "What do I want to bake today?" You could choose so many things. But if I went to my kitchen and said, "Okay, what red thing can I bake today that I want to eat, that I am inspired by, that is seasonal?" It adds so many layers of kind of challenge to the bake that I find very inspiring.
Kerry Diamond:
Certainly adds some layers of complexity. Who was eating all this cake?
Elisa Sunga:
Mostly me. So my doctor was not very happy about it in the beginning. We had several conversations about my cholesterol level, but at the same time I am also quite active. I love power lifting and so that balances it a lot. In the beginning, the pastry boxes was also great to kind of share the love with everyone, but for the most part, it's me eating all of it.
Kerry Diamond:
Before Cake Picnic became a thing, you had Baking Bucket List Club.
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. It's still active. It's still active.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that.
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. So I guess I should say that I'm also the co-founder of the Bucket List Bake Club, and that started, I believe in 2022 with Anabelle Brown. She owns Moonbridge Studio in Long Beach now. But the concept of Bucket List Bake Club is that every month we would choose a prompt of a baking item and we would all virtually bake it together.
We wouldn't even share a recipe necessarily because you could reuse whatever recipe you want. You could choose whatever flavor you want. So for example, this month's challenge is savory biscuits. So be creative, do whatever you want, as long as it's savory biscuit and we'll share it. And I think I love the Bucket List Bake Club because it's, again, there's some sort of criteria there for what you're baking, but the canvas is still yours. You could still choose what flavor, color, shape, texture it ends up being, which is, I think so powerful.
Kerry Diamond:
If you want to be a member of the Bucket List Bake Club, how can you join?
Elisa Sunga:
Just follow on Instagram and you can join any time of the month. You don't even need to wait.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to ask, how do you have the space in your brain to compartmentalize all of this? You're baking, you're at Google doing all the Google things, you've got your Bucket List Bake Club, and we haven't even touched on Cake Picnic yet.
Elisa Sunga:
That's such a great question, and I am getting that question quite more frequently now. I think for me, my core role at Google is a program manager. So as a program manager, I live my life in spreadsheets, so there's always a timeline, a tracker for everything. And I think even when I started baking in 2020, I gave myself the challenge of baking Christina Tosi's Milk Bar cakes.
So I took all of her Milk Bar cakes from the two cookbooks and set myself the challenge of baking 20 of them. So when I was doing that, I just put everything in spreadsheets and I just became so mechanical about doing that. And I think that there's a lot of parts of baking that is mechanical, some part artistic, and I think there's a balance of each of that, that each baker decides how much they want to lean into.
But I think that my role as a program manager helps me be more efficient, optimize and think about these things in very efficient ways. And I think every day I'm looking for, "How do I get better at doing everything a little bit better each day?"
Kerry Diamond:
So you're doing all this stuff. You have this idea for Cake Picnic. First off, the name is genius, so congratulations on that. I know you trademarked it, so watch out everybody else if you try to throw a Cake Picnic. Very smart of you, and you should trademark things when you come up with a good idea. Tell us the origin story.
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. Cake Picnic, right now is 11 months old. It blows my mind that it's not even a year old. Yeah. About a year ago, a friend invited me to a cake brunch. The concept was there would be a lot of cake and everyone would eat brunch together. I was very devastated that I had a conflict and couldn't attend the said cake brunch.
And so I was sitting in my misery just lamenting how I wasn't able to attend this cake brunch. And then I thought to myself, "Wait a minute. I could host a Cake Picnic too. I could just have people gather and the requirement would be bring a whole cake at a day that I could attend." And so I just quickly put together the idea of ... It was inspired too by “Alice in Wonderland,” that scene of everyone in the tea party in the forest.
I have a fond affinity for Golden Gate Park, so I said, "Okay, why don't I host it at Golden Gate Park, and it'll be like an 'Alice in Wonderland' moment." I put the invite on Instagram hoping for at least 15 people to come to my Cake Picnic. And my dream was when all 15 of us get together with our cakes, we would form a circle holding our cakes and say, "Hi, my name's Elisa. I brought a triple chocolate cake and I'm from Antioch, California. Nice to meet you."
And we would take turns going around the circle saying that, but as soon as I posted the invite, the RSVPs just started jumping from 50, 100, 150, 200. It capped at 300. When it got to 300, I was so shocked. I was texting all my friends and I was, "Is this a joke? Did I just become the joke of the internet? Are these people serious, because I'm serious? I am seriously going to bring a whole cake, but I don't know if these people are."
Even up until the very minute, the starting 11:00 AM of that day, I wasn't sure who was going to come because it was a soft RSVP and you could cancel at anytime. There's no tickets at that stage. And so even at 11:00 AM on that day and that morning, I had no idea if it was going to be me and my, I think the seven cakes that I decided to make that day, or it was going to be 150. Thankfully, I think it was 153 that day, which was amazing and a dream come true.
Kerry Diamond:
So you didn't stand around in a circle with your cakes and all 153 people, because I love that idea. It sounds very witchy and fabulous, doesn't it?
Elisa Sunga:
Kerry, trust me, I was doing the math. I was like, "Okay, if 150 of us are here and we took two seconds each speaking, how many minutes would that be?" It was not possible.
Kerry Diamond:
No, I'm kidding. But the idea of it is fantastic. Did you get in trouble with the park because you kind of need a permit at some point when you have a lot of people?
Elisa Sunga:
I was learning a lot in that time period. So when it was 15 people, then it was 30, then it was 40, I was like, "This is fine. It's just a picnic potluck. You just show up. What's the issue?" And then as soon as it started getting to 300, my friends are asking me questions, "Did you get a permit?" And I was still so reluctant.
I was like, "It's literally a potluck. It's just a picnic. Why do we need a permit? I don't even know who's going to come. Why do I need a permit?" And I was pushing back on it so much that finally, I think it was two weeks before the date, I decided, "Okay, let me just cover my bases and try to get a permit."
And when I reached out to the San Francisco Parks and Rec Department they were like, "The biggest park we could give you, I think is 75 people," or I think it was 100. So I was like, "Okay, let me just get that and just hope for the best."
And so the picnic went well the first time. But the Monday after the weekend, I got an email from SF Parks and Rec saying, "Hey, you should try to get a park picnic permit earlier. And also, just give us a heads-up next time."
Kerry Diamond:
One of the things I love about Cake Picnic is all your rules, no cake, no entry. You have 10 minutes to go look at all the cakes and take pictures. You've got all these rules set up, but I want you to talk about some of them because we've got a lot of people who do throw events and plan events and want to do events.
We've learned a little bit about you now. We know you're a UX girlie. You think about the efficiency of things. What were you thinking after the event?
Elisa Sunga:
Well, my immediate thought was coming home with my just sheet tray of cakes, and I'm just looking at the sheet tray with 20 different slices of cake. And I was like, "Wow, when do I ever get to eat a tiramisu cake, a matcha cake, a Neapolitan cake, a princess cake, literally all in the same three minutes of my life? That is amazing."
And I think for that reason alone, people should come to our Cake Picnic. But after that, I started just processing the event of just what went well, what didn't go well. I think there was also just, informally during the first event leading up to it, we were starting to call it Cakechella. And so that was appearing in all the captions and things like that. And my account was suspended for a day because I didn't know that Coachella owned the chella suffix. And so I quickly learned that in terms of just like, "Ooh, you cannot call it Cakechella."
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, so they own anything chella?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. So that's when I learned-
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so we shouldn't launch Cherrychella or Bombechella. Yeah. I wasn't planning on it anyway, but good to know. What were some of the other takeaways for you?
Elisa Sunga:
I think it was clear to me that the venue for the place is super important. I think coming together as a picnic in a beautiful location really makes a difference. I was really lucky with the first picnic location that it was gorgeous. And so that was really great.
I think too, was starting to learn about how many cakes fit on a table. That's something that I'm learning now, and just learning how to estimate that along the way. I think too, just the experience of people going up to get their cake slices and what order that is, how much time, I've been adjusting it for every Cake Picnic, just trying to see what is best. But I think that's still a work in progress.
Kerry Diamond:
Where was the next Cake Picnic?
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah, so after that Cake Picnic, my emails and direct messages were just a flurry of, "Come to Ireland. Come to Morocco. Come to Singapore. Come to Malaysia. Come to everywhere." I really wish I could, but at that time I was like, "Oh, I have trips planned to L.A. and New York, so I think those are doable." A month after that first Cake Picnic, quickly made our way to L.A. and there was 250 plus cakes at that one, which is so incredible. It was at a park as well.
Kerry Diamond:
It was at a park. Okay. And how about New York? Where was the New York one?
Elisa Sunga:
New York was indoor. It's somewhere near Chelsea.
Kerry Diamond:
And we were away. We were devastated. I forget what event we were doing, but we were like, "No, Cake Picnic is when we're out of town." And then what came after New York?
Elisa Sunga:
So I thought New York would be the last one for the year, but the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco reached out because they were celebrating their 100th centennial. And so they were like, "We're celebrating a big milestone. Would you like to celebrate with a lot of cake?"
And at that time, the first question I remember asking them was, "What is the max capacity?" Because at that point, I was learning that max capacity was the issue, because every Cake Picnic thus far, the demand far outgrew all the capacities of the venues I was hosting at.
So my first question to the Legion of Honor was, "What's the max capacity?" They said, "There is no max capacity. Our lawn is really big." And so imagine my excitement hearing that because up until that point, L.A. and New York were such a nightmare just trying to find a big enough location. So for the Legion of Honor, I started taking RSVPs and it was over a thousand, Kerry, over 1,000 RSVPs.
And at that point, I decided to cap it myself because I was like, "This is triple, quadruple all of the other Cake Picnics thus far. I need to cap it just for just safety."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, your own sanity because I realize this with Jubilee because similarly, we had 1,000 people there. You forget that that's 1,000 people emailing you with questions.
Elisa Sunga:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, fortunately we have a team now, we'll talk about who's helping you. Go back a sec. Did you sell tickets to the other Cake Picnics or was it just you had to RSVP and you weren't charging people?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. That's something I needed to learn along the way too. So the way that Cake Picnic works is generally, if it's hosted at a park, there's rules and regulations for each park, if you could charge entry tickets or not. For San Francisco and L.A., no tickets. New York, because it was an indoor venue that had to rent out, I could charge tickets, which was really helpful to recouping the costs for a venue because I learned that New York, Manhattan, spaces are very, very, very expensive. And then for the Legion of Honor, we just did a donation to help cover costs for that one.
Kerry Diamond:
Folks who came to the Cherry Bombe Jubilee in San Francisco in 2017 might remember that location. It was built for a world's fair. I couldn't believe the size of it. We booked it for Jubilee. And then when we went to go see the space, it's like the size of an airport hangar inside.
Elisa Sunga:
Wow.
Kerry Diamond:
It's remarkable. But the inside is so beautiful, and the outside's so beautiful, and that park is gorgeous with all those, I don't even know what you would call those structures. You feel like you're in Rome or somewhere.
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. It's so beautiful. You just feel teleported. And then where the Cake Picnic was set up, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge too. So that was such a treat.
Kerry Diamond:
You have to get everything for it. You have to get the tables, you have to get security. I'm guessing, I don't know, are you getting the knives and the plates and the boxes and everything?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, yes. Yeah, mostly. I think that's something along the way too, depending on the venue. For example, this weekend we just had the Cake Picnic at The Flower Fields in Carlsbad. And so at the venue there, they were a little bit concerned about metal knives and servers all over the fields. And so they asked me to provide plastic cake servers for everyone. But usually in the other Cake Picnics, I have everyone bring their own servers.
Kerry Diamond:
And do you have a team at this point? I mean, I know you're not really monetizing this yet.
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah, so the team is mostly me, my partner Danny, who has started to help out a lot more. He's helping out with the logistics and operations and definitely the day of, super incredible partner. And honestly, our team of volunteers that make every Cake Picnic possible.
Kerry Diamond:
And I saw you have a sponsor. Did you have Cotton… Cotton is your sponsor, which is so interesting. I remember the Cotton ads from when I was a kid. "Cotton is the fabric of your life."
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. It's a funny story. Earlier this year, Danny and I received this email from Emily who works at Gale Agency and she said, "Our client is interested in working with Cake Picnic." She didn't mention at the time who, and so overnight, Danny and I were like, "Is it butter? Is it flour? Is it sugar? Is it milk? Who is it? Who could it be?"
And so we get on this call with Emily the next morning and the team, and she says, "We are Cotton." And Danny and I are like, "What do you mean, Cotton?" So it was just so funny. But the partnership just makes so much sense because a picnic, there's picnic blankets, there's tablecloths, what you're wearing to a picnic, generally is cotton.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you, Cotton for supporting Cake Picnic. The big question that everyone wants to know, where are you going next?
Elisa Sunga:
Okay, the next one on the calendar is July 5 in London, which also happens to be my birthday, but also happens to be the first international Cake Picnic stop.
Kerry Diamond:
Very exciting. How many people and where is it?
Elisa Sunga:
So right now, the space that I have booked, I won't publicize it yet just because it might change, is 150 people. But the London wait list, I think the last time I looked at it is 3,000 people. So we're looking into a bigger venue, everyone.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so that's London. What's after London?
Elisa Sunga:
So the last two planned for this year officially would be L.A. and New York. We're still looking for venues for those as well. I think in planning these extra large potlucks, the hardest part is the venue, especially in New York. And so that one, I'm hoping it will land in the fall.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, you don't have to tell me about New York.
Elisa Sunga:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a challenging place to throw events.
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, it's very expensive here. But you know what? People throw events here every day, so it is possible.
Elisa Sunga:
It's possible.
Kerry Diamond:
It's possible. Do you have your eyes on any places?
Elisa Sunga:
No, and I'm just very open. I think what I learned from doing it last year, potentially an outdoor space might be better for the picnic vibe.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah. I wanted to ask, so the San Francisco one, you had gorgeous weather. What was your rain plan?
Elisa Sunga:
Oh, my gosh. I don't know if we had a good rain plan. I remember emailing all the guests. I was like, "If there is going to be rain on the forecast for that day, we will cancel and reschedule to the next Saturday." When you have an event that grows to hundred and thousands of people, what you need to factor in is the customer service that comes with it. And that is one of the things I dislike the most about Cake Picnic, is just how so much of my day is answering DMs and questions and emails of just, "I can't find my ticket. What is this? Where is that?" And so it's challenging.
Definitely, I have a whole new level of respect for anyone who does customer service. But yes, so I was saying as the event gets bigger, that challenge also gets bigger.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you realized that there is kind of a, no pun intended, but sweet spot in terms of the number of participants?
Elisa Sunga:
No, I think that's still a question that I'm trying to navigate. This last weekend for The Flower Field Cake Picnic, it was two days. It was the first time that the Cake Picnic was split into two days. Each day was around 150 people. That was the max capacity for the space that we had at the venue.
And so to me, coming from the San Francisco event of almost 1,400 cakes, I was really excited about this intimate Cake Picnic with 150 people. And so I was just chatting with the attendees from this weekend asking them, "Would you rather go to an intimate Cake Picnic or a large Cake Picnic?" And as a part of this user experience research that I was doing with these folks of just trying to understand what would resonate more with people, it was such a mixed bag of, some people because of their personality type, attending an event with 1,400 people is just not a good idea.
That does not sound like a good time to them, but there were so many people that was, "The bigger, the better. Let's do 3,000." And so I think it depends really on who you're asking. For me right now, if you ask me personally, I think the sweet spot of what would be doable for me, not so stressful that I would lose sleep for days would probably be around 200."
Kerry Diamond:
Sounds like a nice number. The photos from San Francisco were epic.
Elisa Sunga:
So epic. I think back to what you were saying earlier of the rain forecast, all of that week it was raining on and off, and so I was so scared. And half of me, Kerry, as the event planner of all this, I was like, half of me was wishing it would rain so we could just cancel the whole thing and just ... But then the other half would realize, "Wait, that's just a temporary band-aid because you're just going to reschedule it. It's not going to make it go away." So I was like, "Okay, let's just get it over with."
And so waking up that day, just super lucky with the forecast that it was beautiful. Such a perfect day in terms of not too hot, sunny, gorgeous for photos, but the pictures and all of the videos from it were just so stunning that even now when I reflect on it, I'm like, "Wow, what a picture-perfect day."
Kerry Diamond:
Obviously, people love Cake Picnic because just the name is so evocative. Everyone's seen the pictures now and it just looks like so much fun. But I think you've tapped into something deeper. What do you think that is?
Elisa Sunga:
Yeah, so my teammate, Danny and I talk about it a lot, and I think it's the connection and community of joy, like choosing joy in a time of maybe not so much joy. I think there's a lot going on with the world, but choosing joy and being intentional about how you're spending your time.
I think you could obviously choose many different things to do and spend your time on, but I think choosing to come together with friends, celebrating with cake, and I think just coming together, meeting new friends, because I think you're setting up your picnic blanket. You're going to be sitting next to people that you don't know. But because of the nature of that event, there's some mystery, there's a level of controlled chaos.
And so you make small talk of, "What cake did you bring? Oh, did you try this cake?" And I think that the event is so nice because it's also self-selecting. I think it's a community that you will say yes to this event if you love cake. Generally, if you're a happy person that wants to enjoy food and enjoy luxury, it's a luxurious event. It's cake at that scale. You don't need to be eating 150 cakes in one sitting, but you're choosing to enjoy life and lean into the whimsy of that.
And so I think what's beautiful about Cake Picnic is it brings together this community that is choosing joy and whimsy, and doing that together.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you make a cake for San Francisco or did you have too much to do?
Elisa Sunga:
No, I made two cakes for San Francisco because saltedrye right now, my alter ego is in a red phase. I brought two red velvet cakes. One was a strawberry cream cheese red velvet cake and the other one was a brown butter red velvet cake.
Kerry Diamond:
When you were teaching yourself how to bake, who were some of the people you looked to?
Elisa Sunga:
Christina Tosi was the first one that I looked to. Really dove into her work. I think there was something about coming to America and her cakes being so classically iconic American cake, it seemed like the epitome of what a cake was. So, really leaned into that.
So I think first and foremost, Benjamina Ebuehi from London, too. I really love her cake and her style. I think Thalia Ho too, of “Wild Sweetness” is really amazing. The Pancake Princess Erika, I think all of her bake-offs have been so instrumental in terms of what not to do with baking and just a shortcut. I love that it's a shortcut for just baking the best things, too.
Kerry Diamond:
How does it work now when you've got so many people and so many cakes? How many slices of cake do you get?
Elisa Sunga:
I think that depends on the person, right? So everyone gets roughly five minutes. So as a person, what is your strategy, right? Are you going for the fruit cakes, a selection, a mix? Are you reading all of the labels? Are you going for the chocolate cakes? Have you cut cakes before? Because as I'm observing these people during the cake cutting, you can tell who's cut cakes before and who hasn't. Because also, I think too, the challenge is some cakes are so beautiful that you're just staring at it for a few seconds and you don't want to cut into it.
A lot of these cakes are pieces of art, you don't want to cut into it. I will just watch people in line reading all of the labels and staring in awe at the cakes because they've never seen such art before. And so as the time goes by, the time is ticking. And so it's fun to see.
People will come out of the cake tables with three slices. Some people will come with 15. So it's so funny to see what strategies people have. I think a tip that I have is, don't read the labels because at that point when you go back, you won't remember what cake is which anyway.
Kerry Diamond:
The whole thing is like performance art in a sense, watching these perfect cakes and then by the end, they are far from perfect.
Elisa Sunga:
No. That's true.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you handle the cleanup?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. The volunteers have been super helpful with that too. And I think that people don't believe me when I say that there's so much cake that there's a lot of leftovers because I think in the beginning, people are so worried that they're not going to get enough cake. There's almost this frantic awry energy in the space.
And so I have to remind everyone, "Relax, calm down. There's going to be a lot of cake. You don't need to worry." But towards the end, there's still so much cake left over that we go back for seconds, thirds and fourths. And at the end, I'm forcing people to take cake home. And they repeatedly tell me, "No, Elisa, I cannot have any more cake. I can't."
So towards the end, depending on the venue too, we open it up to who's in the public that wants cake. This weekend, because it was in The Flower Fields, we were able to donate the extras to the staff workers who were picking all of the flowers and things like that.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's great. What have some of the most beautiful cakes been?
Elisa Sunga:
So many, Kerry, it's hard to describe, but this most recent Cake Picnic, there were multi-tiered cakes of just fountains, vintage piping, still life art fruit cakes, just very painted cakes. There's such a variety of cake.
Kerry Diamond:
Cake decoration at least has changed so much, pretty much starting with the pandemic. I mean, now you've got these incredible cake artists like Frosted Hag and Amy Yip, From Lucie, Aimee France, and on and on. I mean, there are so many others who I could name. But you've really had this sort of cake decoration revolution taking place since the pandemic, led by women. Have you seen that at the different Cake Picnics?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. And that's one of the things that I love most. In the first Cake Picnic, someone made the comment that the moment where all of the cakes are on the table, it's almost like being in an art gallery of cakes because you see hundreds of cakes in their most pristine glory. And so you're just like, "Wow, cake is art." And that is so true.
To your point, I think every tour stop or every Cake Picnic in each city has been such a beautiful snapshot of cake decorating because depending on the season of the Cake Picnic, right? So for New York, it was in the fall, so we saw a lot of pumpkin cake flavors leaning into autumn. A lot of the decor, we're using fall foliage too.
And as we lean into the spring Cake Picnic, a lot of the more citrus flavors of passion fruit, orange and all of the beautiful florals of spring are showing up. And I think that's so fun to see just within every city, like San Francisco, L.A., New York. Every city has a different style almost, and a different trend that they're following.
And so now I'm seeing a lot more vintage cakes, actually. So that's been fun to see of just following the flow of cake trends. And I think as someone who bakes cakes too, that's one of the things I love about Cake Picnic, is just the inspiration that I'm able to witness and see and enjoy myself because I'll attend the Cake Picnic and I taste these cakes of black sesame and orange, and I thought to myself when I was tasting. I was like, "Wow, I would've never thought of doing that pairing myself, but because someone else brought it to the picnic, I was able to taste it and kind of form my own opinions about it."
So it's such a fun way to gather inspiration, but also a form of research and development.
Kerry Diamond:
I've noticed on Instagram, people calling things cakes, but they're savory and made of savory things, pickles, tin fish, even blocks and rounds of cheese, wheels of cheese. Have you started to notice this at Cake Picnic, or does everyone pretty much bring sweet cakes?
Elisa Sunga:
No, the trend of savory cakes is definitely strong. At the San Francisco one, my friend Joyce actually made a tomato cake that went super viral. It was this beautiful square cake with sausage in it and just beautiful savory flavors, and everyone was raving about that cake.
And in San Diego this weekend, there was a couple of savory cakes too. That is definitely, I think one of the cakes that most people look forward to at the picnic because when you're eating so much sugar, the only thing you end up wanting at the end is salt. So people beeline for the two or three savory cakes when we're at the picnic. But I'm hoping that as we continue to do the Cake Picnic tour, more people will bring savory cakes.
Kerry Diamond:
I would probably want a salad. Have you trademarked salad picnic yet?
Elisa Sunga:
Salad picnic? No, I haven't. Oh, but I did do a cookie picnic in December because it's cookie exchange season, and so I thought that was a fun play on the picnic concept, and it was also super successful. I think we had over 55 types of cookies.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, my gosh. It's so clear, Elisa, that this is taking over your life, and you do have a pretty important job, as you told everybody. Where are you in terms of, "I love this. This is an amazing hobby. It's making lots of people happy, but I have a day job," versus, "I want to make Cake Picnic my life"?
It's something that a lot of people have to deal with who start things as either a side hustle or a hobby or something for fun. Cherry Bombe was never meant to be a business. I didn't start that with a business plan. That was just a print magazine. We didn't even have a website, and people are like, "What?" I'm like, "Nope. We just thought we'd do a few magazines and have some fun, and it snowballed into something else." And you are going through the same thing. So where's your head at?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. I feel like you read my mind when you said that it's taking over my life because I do think about that. Every other hour or so I'll think, "Wow, it's taken over my life." I am grappling with that question quite a bit because I do love what I do at Google. I really love it. I think it's the best team and perfect role for me.
So right now, if you asked me if I wanted to make Cake Picnic my full-time job, I would say no. I enjoy it as being kind of a passion project still. The reason why I'm able to do it so well is because it's not my full-time job. I think I still look at it as, "If I'm an attendee, what is that experience like?"
So because I think of it that way, I think I'm able to really curate such a good experience for attendees, and I'm still not so deep into it that it loses its shape or original intention of what it was.
Kerry Diamond:
You must feel a lot of pressure though, because I see your Instagram account and literally, every country, every city, every state has asked you to come do a Cake Picnic. Do you feel pressured?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, all the time. So much pressure. And that's hard for me because one of my mottos in life is to experience life. I love saying yes to new experiences. And so whenever someone tells me or asks me to do something cool, or a new idea, or a new city, it's really such a battle within myself to say no. But I've reached the point of, I just honestly can't say yes to a lot of things, which breaks my heart.
So yes, I think it is a lot of pressure and I'm learning more and more, how to set boundaries, how to prioritize myself and my time, and focusing, pouring myself into the things that I think are right and what would make me happy at this point in time.
Kerry Diamond:
Did I hear a rumor that you're doing a Cake Picnic cookbook or baking book?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, I am. So now that the two Cake Picnic for this year are done, I have a little bit of a break from the actual tour, but now I will be working on shooting the book for Chronicle Books. So it is scheduled to come in spring 2026. So, it is coming quite soon.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that is really soon for a cookbook. Oh, gosh. Well, that's fun. And you'll have to have a Cake Picnic planned for that?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes, for sure. But yes, I think if you asked me too, did I ever think that all of these tour stops were going to happen? Did I think that I was going to write a cookbook? The answer was no, but it just is happening so quickly, Kerry. I think I signed the cookbook in November and I had to write the manuscript in a month, and now I have to shoot in five weeks.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you doing the photography yourself?
Elisa Sunga:
No, I'm working with Andrea Lowe, who is based in the Bay Area. So that's my life for the next five weeks. No more Cake Picnic events, but Cake Picnic cakes are definitely happening.
Kerry Diamond:
Are all the recipes yours?
Elisa Sunga:
Yes. So the cookbook, the first half will be how to host a Cake Picnic and then the second half will be 50 cake recipes.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so much fun. Oh, my gosh, that must be great because you've got this whole inventory that you can source from of cakes you've been doing since the pandemic. Will we see some saltedrye classics in the book?
Elisa Sunga:
No. So that's another thing with my baking, is I don't really love repeating bakes because I get bored and want to move on to the next thing. But also, I just feel like every new cake is an opportunity to bake something new. So all 50 new cakes, which I'm excited about.
Back to the point about the first half of the book being how to host a Cake Picnic, it will be smaller Cake Picnics. I think that when I was writing the book, I just asked myself, "Who out there is trying to plan 1,000 large Cake Picnics?" Probably no one. The How-to Guide for Planning a Cake Picnic will be seen. They'll be smaller for sizes of about 10 to 12.
And so thinking about the themes of each one, so the book will be organized by a color Cake Picnic, a square Cake Picnic, and fun suggestions like that for more intimate Cake Picnics, which I think now coming off of these really big Cake Picnics, there is a part of me that thinks back to that 15-person circle and really wants that. So my hope, my selfish hope is that these people reading the book will plan these 15-person Cake Picnics and have these super joyous, intimate Cake Picnics together.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so beautiful. Well Elisa, you are the bombe. Congratulations on what you have started and all the joy that you've brought to everybody, even just us watching your Cake Picnics from afar.
Elisa Sunga:
Oh, my gosh. Kerry, Cherry Bombe team, I hope to see you guys at the New York Cake Picnic. Thank you, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rating and a review. Anyone you want to hear on an upcoming episode? Let me know. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer at Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You're the Bombe.