This event made me happy. It was a cake picnic to raise money for cats. I’d seen pictures of cake picnics, and they look SO COOL. So when I heard they were having one in Long Beach, I bought a ticket. I figured the worst-case scenario was that there’d be no vegan cakes and I’d have donated some money to cats.
Long Beach’s local Sports Basement hosted the event on their mostly empty third floor, which allowed plenty of space for wandering around to preview the cakes. I spent some time browsing the lower floors of Sports Basement (I’d never been to one before), and overheard a lot of “Where are people getting all the cake?!” from the unsuspecting shoppers.
The way it works is that you can either eat as many slices as you bring, or you can purchase five slices of cake without having to bring anything. I chose the latter option, so I made sure to browse all the options before my group was called so that I knew which five slices I was aiming for. None of these cakes were vegan, but I took pictures anyway because they looked awesome.
On my first pass I found one vegan cake! It was called “You’re Berry Beautiful!” I was excited there was at least one, but I had to admit I’d hoped there’d be more. Finally I realized there was a whole vegan table section behind me. Seven vegan cakes total (the berry beautiful cake, vanilla layer cake with raspberries, sachertorte–a Viennese chocolate sponge cake with apricot jam, a cookie cake, Nora’s chocolate cake, lemon poppyseed, and tuxedo cake). I was especially excited for Nora’s chocolate cake which is so good that it was featured in the New York Times. It lives up to the hype–the first bite makes you do a double-take, like “Whoa that is really good, let’s test again with a second bite.” My favorite ended up being the vanilla layer cake with raspberries, mostly because of the not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting.
Overall it seemed like a successful event! The attendees demolished the cakes, and I hope a lot of money was raised for cats. The event was well-organized with a stellar announcer, a great plate and fork distribution system, a good plan for crowd control around the cakes, and everyone seemed to be in an excellent mood. I got to meet the maker of “Fuzzy’s Burnt Cheesecake,” a woman who seemed stunned that her entry had been so successful.
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