Meet Jamie Li | Cake Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jamie Li and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jamie, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
I started Jamie Cake SF in early 2020, amidst a career change, 5 months after the birth of my youngest, and 3 months just before the start of a pandemic. Needless to say, balance isn’t a word I would use to describe my life.

As the sole business owner/employee working 90-100 hour weeks and trying to balance family life (A loving husband & 3 kiddos – now 2,4, & 6 years old) I tried to keep work and life separate – I compartmentalized and built walls that only made me feel worse.

It wasn’t until about 6 months into starting Jamie Cake SF (3 months into the pandemic, and 3 months of homeschooling) I realized life is not stable, but in constant motion and I cannot organize my life into separate compartments.

Instead now, I’m trying to approach life as a whole – integrating everything I do and letting each aspect of my life feed off each other. Allowing things to fall into place, rather than forcing them to fit into a pre-defined structure.

I realize for me, balance is not something I can ever get, but something I continually do — And I’m ok with that.

Albert Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Here’s to life being in constant motion!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
JamieCakeSF began as a passion project. Cake decorating has been a steady presence in my life for well over a decade. As a makeup artist and corporate cosmetic executive by day at organizations like Christian Dior, Laura Mercier, and Shiseido, I honed my craft by night making cakes for friends and friends of friends, but never thought in a million years this would turn into a full time gig.

My background in beauty, fashion, and art has tremendously influenced my design style, and can be seen through my obsession for clean lines, creative color palette, texture driven, and sculpturally-influenced decorating style.

I like to embrace and incorporate all mediums of cake decorating from fondant to buttercream, to airbrushing, to cake painting, and collage. I don’t like to put my cake design style into one box. Although having and sticking to one design aesthetic would make my business much more scaleable; I can’t control my love for creativity and love making a different cake each time.

Each cake is made to order and is custom designed in collaboration with the client. I work closely with each client to translate their narrative and celebration theme into a visual story using flour, sugar, and eggs. Each design takes on average 16-24 active baking and decorating hours to make, not including the design time which could sometimes take days. Orders are typically made 8-10 weeks in advance and this is sometimes cutting it close.

Creating the design and telling the client’s story through cake is my favorite/and most difficult part of the process. No two cakes are ever the same. This means the most horribly pretentious words of the new millennium – “artisanal”, “bespoke”, “handcrafted” – actually describe each cake. 😉

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I was visiting Southern California this would be my go to itinerary:

Breakfast: The Trails Eatery (OMG the cinnamon roll pancakes!)
Brunch: République (Banana Cream pie can be brunch right?)
Lunch: Lee’s Sandwiches Westminster (Yum!)
Dinner: Animal (Everything!)

More food:
Felix Trattoria – Everything is delicious
Langer’s Delicatessen – The Ruben is off the hook!
Taiko Sushi – My old stomping ground. It’s been around for 30 years! Before there was an Irvine Spectrum!

Best Hair Cut/Color/Makeup : Tiffany Lee https://instagram.com/beautystylelist?utm_medium=copy_link
Spa: Wi Spa (Who doesn’t like a 24 hour spa retreat?)

Janessa leone store Culver City – Best hats ever!

I love West Hollywood, shopping on Melrose, and surfing all the beaches. My favorite spot is San Onofre – I’m a long boarder and just love it there.

Infinity Surf Shop

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Oh that’s a really tough question! There are so many people I’d want to give a shoutout to that helped make my dream a reality. Not just family and friends, but a whole community of folks in my support circle I’ve never met #IRL thanks to social media – big shoutout to everyone out in the ethos! But if I have to dedicate just one shoutout it would be to my amazing cousin, restaurateur, mama of 2, and bad-ass break dancer, and celebrity chef Stacey Poon-Kinney of The Trails Eatery in San Diego. Thank you for all your encouragement, getting me out of my comfort zone from behind the camera, and getting me in front of it – You are #GOALS!

Website: jamiecakesf.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/jamiecakesf?utm_medium=copy_link

Twitter: @jamiecakesf

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamiecakesf/

Image Credits
Rob Wong (Photo of me holding a cake)