​Also thanks to Manjit for sending over some photos of the cake in its "natural habitat!"

"I want a shark cake, no, I want a space cake, but I want a shark cake. How about space rocket? But it has a shark!"
"How bout we make a space shark cake?"
"Oooh, yeah! - I want red velvet and cream cheese frosting!"

As I was leaving he says, "YiMa (aunt in Cantonese), can you start making the cake when you get home?"
"I'll make when it gets closer to the day so that the cake is fresh, but I promise I will have it in time for your birthday."

Happy 5th Birthday 🐻! I loved making this cake for you!
It was the first time I ever made a galaxy cake. It's the first time I ever made a shark cake. It's the first time I ever made a space shark cake!

The helmet was originally going to be a giant gelatin bubble, but I saw this glass succulent vase at the dollar store and used it instead. Save me quite a bit of time, and frustration.

Lessons learned:
- make the body of the baby shark smaller to match the size of the head
- maybe include a 2d fondant spaceship at the back, connected to the shark to hide some of the skewer.

My first birthday during COVID... While my other 40th celebrations in 2020 like Dapper Day at Disneyland and Hawaii trips were canceled due to COVID, I was still able to celebrate my birthday in February last year with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ON my birthday, with tickets that I purchased in March of 2019, the year before!!

This year, I was feeling a bit down, but am grateful for all the reminders of how blessed I am. My parents and I went to Barney's Hamburgers, where they had outdoor dining, and I was able to enjoy some fresh curly fries (delivered and reheated fries just aren't the same) and their Turkish coffee milkshake. I got my nails done, and went to Starbucks and got myself a birthday cake pop. My boss came over and dropped off a tropical plant, some tiki torches, and an amazon gift card as a starter for my plan to transform my backyard into a little slice of Hawaii here in CA. My boyfriend also got me a whole plate of Baby Yoda themed chocolate covered strawberries and a chocolate box! (sorry, Grogu, his full name)

I also received some very thoughtful, empowering, and fun birthday cards. One of the cards that I received had a cake on it, and so of course, I had to make the cake. Thank you Wenonah, for getting me baking again! 😊🎂

The next question I know I will get is: "Is the inside the same colors too?" And the answer is yes... but no. I added the food coloring for the yellow and teal layers (they came out beautifully!) and used beetroot powder to get the pink color but unfortunately, the color completely baked out.

THE. CAKE. IS. HUGE. I had to stretch my arms so far in front of me to take that selfie! 6" round on top of an 8" round - and I only made one recipe of buttercream, so everything was super lightly frosted, which make the cake:icing ratio perfect for my taste - it is MY birthday cake after all!

I gave the top tier to my godson (and birthday twinsie who celebrated his 2nd birthday), and took the big tier to my sisters' house for the family birthday gathering. I'm sure my brother in law hates me for bringing so much sugar to the kids, but that's what YiMa's are for!

When you run out of candles, you use the next closest thing on hand:

Saw this recipe on YouTube, and I just had to try it! I really like it, and I will have to try using this recipe as a rolled cookie. The only thing is that I'd hate to cover up the flavor with royal icing. Maybe I can use this recipe for flower pressed cookies.

Shared some of these cookies with my friends and their kids. One of my goddaughters started repeating "Cookie cow! Cookie cow!" By the time I pulled my phone out to try to capture it, she decided to go into more detail, with her pops egging her on in the background 😜.

Well, no, 2019 is the year of the pig, but my 姨媽 (yi ma - aunt) and my 表哥 (biu goh - cousin) were both born in the Year of the Rabbit (different years). When my mom asked me if I could make a cake, I decided to put in some of the elements from the birthday peach cake. The peach is a symbol of longevity in Chinese culture, and well, the characters were a request from the birthday peach cake, so I don't actually know what the characters mean.

But not to worry! Per Google, 福如東海 (fuk yu dong hoi) means "bountiful happiness" or more directly translated, "blessings like the east ocean" which we know as the Pacific Ocean - the biggest one. The second phrase, 壽北南山 (sau buc lam sahn), doesn't have a direct translation from google, but each character separately mean "life, north, south, mountain." Combined with the ideas of bounty and longevity, I would guess it is to wish the birthday celebrant a life as long and as tall as the mountains from the north to the south (close enough).