Vancouver Baking Blogger Opens Brick-and-Mortar Sweet Shop And Convinces Me to Give Cheesecake Another Chance

After six years together, I recently learned that my husband’s favourite cake is cheesecake.

That seems like an embarrassingly long time to not know that. I thought back and couldn’t remember him ever even eating a slice. Had he been hiding that from me on purpose, or am I just too self-absorbed in my own desert preferences to ever even ask? There’s no way of knowing, but either way, I was shocked. This is a man who avoids anything even remotely mayo-adjacent (get lost, ricotta!) and orders his burgers with a “dry bun,” so the fact that he has a distinct preference for what is essentially a block of sweet, high-fat sour cream is making me doubt everything I’ve ever known. Plus, cheesecake, to me, is a deeply unappealing stuck-in-the-’90s dessert: slab-like, typically mile-high, a staple of a decadent night out at Red Robin. Not something I personally would put on the top of my birthday wish list, nor something I would expect my life partner to. What is even happening?! What is love?!

But then I tried a mini cheesecake at the new Oh Sweet Day bake shop and suddenly I saw what I’d been missing. Done right, cheesecake can be light-as-air, delicate and foamy! The graham cracker crust can be moist and buttery! Is this my favourite cake now, too?! What is even happening?! Who am I! 

So shout out to baker Fanny Lam for helping me see things from Max’s perspective, and she’ll presumably be spreading the good word to many more now that her shop is open on Commercial Drive. As an early food blogger and Instagrammer, Lam garnered a following for her photogenic cakes and shortbread cookies, and then became a farmer’s market darling; her online bakery served up mango mouse coconut cakes covered in tiny meringues and pumpkin chiffon tarts to a hungry public for years before she took took the leap to brick-and-mortar earlier this summer. (And released a cookbook the same year! I guess when you eat as much sugar as she probably does, you’ve got the energy for it all.)

The tiny, airy shop keeps the cooler stocked with her creations, including those game-changing cheesecakes in flavours like espresso, strawberry and matcha black sesame. So now that I know the deep dark truth about my partner’s sweet tooth, I’ll be back to grab a big one for his next birthday… and maybe a mini one just for me to celebrate my change of heart. Cheesecake: I wish I knew you sooner. 

The Deets
Oh Sweet Day Bakeshop
1706 E 1st Ave, Vancouver
ohsweetday.com