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Friday, May 23, 2025

Sweet

Inspiration

Kris­tle “Krissie” Gar­cia

builds on her moth­er’s lega­cy with unique cake de­signs

by

12 days ago
20250507

Cheryl Leong Poi was a cre­ative and tal­ent­ed per­son, turn­ing every hob­by in­to a suc­cess­ful project. This in­clud­ed build­ing fur­ni­ture, fix­ing ap­pli­ances, knit­ting, and bak­ing de­li­cious home­made bread and cakes.

Her on­ly child Kris­tle “Krissie” Gar­cia called her the Jill of all trades.

Krissie re­mem­bers her moth­er hur­ry­ing home from work to pre­pare her fa­mous sponge cake, or cheese­cake to fill or­ders for the next day. She said the hap­pi­est part for her was in­dulging in the left­overs.

Her moth­er even­tu­al­ly ob­tained a cer­tifi­cate in culi­nary skills and con­tin­ued to broad­en her of­fer­ing.

“My mom’s or­ders and their de­tails grew, which com­pelled me to try and help in some way, al­beit be­ing very green in the field. Be­ing a peo­ple-per­son, I man­aged the or­ders, or­ga­nized the raw ma­te­ri­als and gro­ceries, and was the de­liv­ery girl,” Krissie said.

Con­cerns but their lack of so­cial me­dia pres­ence led to the launch of a Face­book page and the birth of Cheryl’s De­lec­table Bake­house/CD Bake­house.”

Krissie said the busi­ness was found­ed out of the sheer joy and love her moth­er had for bak­ing.

As time pro­gressed, see­ing the need to ap­ply her­self in a more mean­ing­ful way, Krissie be­gan to ex­plore her cre­ativ­i­ty­by de­sign­ing cakes with her moth­er’s guid­ance.

As they col­lab­o­rat­ed on de­signs, Krissie’s skills and con­fi­dence in­creased.

Then things took a trag­ic turn.

“In 2023, pro­duc­tion was dis­rupt­ed ow­ing to my mom’s can­cer di­ag­no­sis in March,” she said.

“She suc­cumbed in Oc­to­ber, which left me heart­bro­ken.”

Krissie got mar­ried amidst the pain of los­ing her moth­er and made her own wed­ding cake, Love & Strength.

“It was the first time I ever made a cake with­out my mom be­ing present, but she was in my thoughts guid­ing me along every step of the way,” she said.

“It was a re­mark­able ex­pe­ri­ence as I had ques­tioned whether I had the abil­i­ty to com­plete it on my own. The re­sult of the wed­ding cake showed me that I was ready and able to move for­ward with the busi­ness to keep her sweet spir­it alive.

“An­oth­er feat was mak­ing my tallest cake of five feet, Tow­er of Love.

“My mom built her lega­cy on sponge cake and cheese­cake. One of her main hopes was that I would con­tin­ue to fol­low in her foot­steps. It was a top­ic she spoke about quite of­ten. I just nev­er an­tic­i­pat­ed that it would present it­self so soon,” Krissie said.

She hopes to live up to and sur­pass her moth­er’s ex­pec­ta­tions. She now spe­cial­izes in themed cakes car­ry­ing on the lega­cy.

More in­for­ma­tion about the busi­ness can be found on­line at­Face­book @Cheryl’s De­lec­table Bake­house; In­sta­gram @cd­bake­house; email: cd­bake­house@hot­mail.com; call (868) 384.7018.


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