You Say It’s Your Birthday?

Everyone loves a birthday celebration—and let’s fess up, one of the best parts is the cake! Having grown up in Vancouver, I have had the good fortune to sample birthday cakes from some stellar bakeries. Who could forget the wonderful whipped cream and fresh fruit-filled sponge cakes from the famed Valley Bakery in Burnaby or the sublime fruit mousse or fresh cream cakes from Anna’s, one of the city’s long-standing Chinese bakeries? And, of course, in my circle of friends, a birthday wasn’t Ganache Pâtisserie’s Peter Fong created this magnificent
cake, rich with chocolate mousse, carmelized bananas,
praline crunch and hazelnut dacquoise, for Coastlines
First Birthday. (Peter Fong)complete without one of the famed Diplomat cakes from the Bon Ton.

Originally sharing the same complex as the Orpheum Theatre and the Commodore Ballroom, Notte’s Bon Ton has been a Vancouver institution since 1926. After some 75 years at the original location, they moved to a newer and brighter space, much to the delight of the many West Side grand dames that patronize the shop’s tea salon. Peering at the vast selection of elegant pastries through the large picture windows of this traditional French Italian bakery on West Broadway, one can hardly resist a taste of some sweet confection. Of the multitude of cake choices, The Diplomat rules. Layers of rich, velvety buttercream are interwoven among rum-soaked genoise and leaves of buttery puff pastry. The cake décor may be somewhat dated with the buttercream rose and leaf design, but this is a traditional Vancouver birthday cake at its best.

Now the birthday cake has come of age as world-class contemporary pastry chefs take le gâteau to new heights. OneThe staff at Tugboat Media, publisher of Coastlines.
Back row, l-r: James Baker, Fang Xu, Qun Wen,
Karsten Jeske, Zaneta Pajak, Donna Fiddis and
Steve Gallagher. Front row, l-r: David Koch, James
Poh, Dan Bartley and Sean Farrell. (Gary Hubbs) of Vancouver’s rising stars in the confectionary world is Peter Fong of Yaletown’s Ganache Pâtisserie.

Inspired by the finest and most famous Parisian chocolatiers and pâtisseries, Chef Fong’s cakes and pastries are confectionary works of art, like edible Fabergé jewellery. Every Ganache creation is fashioned at their intimate shop on Homer Street, including an extensive menu of wedding and special occasion cakes that are to die for. The Poire et Sichuan Chocolat features a pyramid of dark chocolate mousse infused with Szechwan pepper and a praline crunch, enrobed around a maple pear gelée. Another creation, the Matcha-Exotique incorporates a subtle green tea mousse, lychees, and a mango-passionfruit gelée, surrounded by a black sesame biscuit joconde.

For Coastlines’ First Birthday celebration, Chef Fong created a delicious masterpiece. The inside featured customer favourite, the Chocolat-Banane: dark chocolate mousse layered with caramelized bananas and praline crunch atop a hazelnut dacquoise. For the outside, he created special banners and a scene depicting mountains, hills and ocean from rolled fondant, hand-cut and applied. Topping this decadent wonder was an edible model seaplane made of pure chocolate. Magnificent!

Such creations do come with a price: calories! But a birthday celebration only comes once a year, so have your cake and eat it, too.

Nathan Fong is a trained chef, food journalist and consultant, television and radio culinary host, and one of Canada’s premier food and props stylists for culinary print and film advertising. He is a regular contributor to Global BCTV’s Saturday Morning Chef and Fong on Food segments, contributing editor for EAT magazine and consulting food specialist for CBC Radio One.