Bakedown Cakery touches down in St Leonards
INSTAFAMOUS chocolatier Bakedown Cakery has just launched its first physical choc shop in St Leonards’ TWT Creative Precinct, and it’s chock-full of its signature face bark, chocolate skulls, Block O’Chocs and Asian-inspired flavour bombs.
Mosman
Don't miss out on the headlines from Mosman. Followed categories will be added to My News.
INSTAFAMOUS chocolatier Bakedown Cakery has just launched its first choc shop in St Leonards’ TWT Creative Precinct.
The new sweets studio is chock-full of tasty treats, including Bakedown Cakery’s signature face bark, chocolate skulls, Block O’ Chocs and Asian-inspired flavour bombs.
The business started as an online store in 2015 before shooting to fame later that year. It has since amassed over 97K followers on Instagram.
A self-confessed “procrastibaker”, founder Jen Lo previously worked as an animation colourist prior to launching her own chocolate-making business.
“It came to the end of my contract and I decided not to stay on. I wanted to commit myself fulltime to my hobby and see where that would take me,” she says.
There’s more to the Bakedown Cakery range than just being really really ridiculously good looking, with Jen sampling and buying some of the world’s best chocolate to make her colourful creations.
“I only buy chocolate that I love the taste of. I don’t buy because of a brand, I buy because my palate likes it,” she says.
Her top suppliers come from Belgium and France (think Valrhona, Callebaut and Belcolade), while the single origin has many sources, including Brazil, Peru, Madagascar, Vietnam, Java and Aruba, among others.
As for the fillings, Jen’s Malaysian Chinese heritage plays a big part in her flavour combinations, with offerings such as the white matcha; passionfruit, mango and sesame; and pandan, coconut and lychee.
Of the complete range, one of the best-loved products is the face bark, which is made from sheets of chocolate printed with a graphic design.
Customers can choose from pre-printed bark, which features beautiful botanical illustrations and artistic splotches and splatters, or you can supply your own image and have it printed on the chocolate.
“Pets and faces are the two most popular requests we get. Often it’s the faces of couples or a spouse, or sometimes people just get their own face,” says Jen.
The idea for the face bark started when Jen created a sheet of Donald Trump-printed chocolate and posted it on Instagram.
“I have no idea why Donald Trump, I just wanted to see what it would look like. I posted it on Instagram and all these comments starting flooding in, with people asking if they could print their own face and I thought, yeah that’s actually a great idea.”
While the shop primarily sells chocolate, Jen also creates custom cakes, which can be ordered in store and online.
Jen’s cake range is similarly stunning, with her signature style revealing blurred rainbow edges, gold leaf decoration, homemade macarons and edible florals.
Over the next few months Jen also plans to launch a series of workshops and classes, which will teach skills such as cake decorating, chocolate tempering and chocolate block and bon bon making.
Details:
What: Bakedown Cakery
Where: 62 Atchison Street, St Leonards
When: Tues-Fri 10am – 5pm, Sat 9am – 12pm
Web: bakedowncakery.com