Ellie You spent years imagining the Harucake universe, right down to the color of the walls: the same soft, faint yellow as butter that's been churned for hours. The walls of the bakery were painted three times to get the exact color.
You's vision for his Koreatown bakery was so clear that he didn't need to hire an architect. She was meticulous about what she wanted: the elegant, large glass entry doors, a photo booth near the entrance that prints happy pictures of customers on white receipt paper, a pastry case at the angular counter that displays her minimalist pastries as if they were jewelry. .
Baker Ellie You opened Harucake in the summer, when a friend posted a video of her minimalist cakes on TikTok. Within days, the Koreatown bakery became a viral sensation.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
On weekends, crowds can spend two hours waiting in line at Harucake, located in a shopping center on the corner of 6th and Kenmore streets. (Weekdays are a little easier to navigate, but the bakery is usually sold out every day.) According to You, the bakery is an “accidental” TikTok sensation, although one could argue that the brand's aesthetic set it up for success on social media.
When it opened in August, a friend of You's posted a video of her cakes on TikTok and they watched the numbers quickly increase. Within days, You's fledgling brick-and-mortar business was a viral sensation.
Not surprisingly, customers are lining up for You's cakes in flavors like green grape yogurt, strawberry milk cream, and lotus mocha. You is a master of the minimalist Korean style of cake decorating popularized by bakeries across Korea, whose images have persistently flooded Instagram over the past few years.
Pastels are a celebration of pastel color combinations, cursive writing, and decorative elements like small hearts, mini fruits or animals, or small flowers with lots of negative space between them. There's often a touch of something playful and childlike like a smiley face or Harucake's ubiquitous dog-like mascot, OO-U (pronounced oo-you), which means “milk” in Korean; OO-U is actually a cookie that loves heavy cream frosting on cakes so much that it gets covered in it.
Made with layers of fluffy Genoese sponge cake and glazed with aerated heavy cream, the cakes hit that “not too sweet” sugar level highly prized when it comes to Asian baked goods. You sells its cakes by the slice, by the standard full cake, and as “lunchbox” or “bento cakes,” another popular trend that took off during the pandemic: creating mini cakes intended essentially for one or two people.
“Bento cakes” are mini cakes for one or two people.
The viral success of You Bakery, which opened in her home in 2019, may have come as a surprise, but everything at Harucake is intentional. Raised in Korea before moving to the United States to finish her education, You first earned a law degree, in an effort to please her parents, before moving on to design school, although she always loved baking. . At 29, miserable at her graphic design job, she decided to quit and work in a bakery part-time while she dedicated herself to dreaming of what would eventually become Harucake and the realization of her childhood dream. .
With Harucake, You highlights and celebrates the Korean flavors she grew up with. “My goal is to make Americans fall in love with Korean pastries,” she says. While the flavors available in the glass pastry case are always changing, they include options like Green Grape Yogurt, which features layers of vanilla sponge cake with a tangy lemon yogurt cream and fresh sliced green grapes; Matcha Strawberry, which has striking layers of green matcha sponge cake, pure milk cream, matcha cream and fresh strawberries; and Mugwort Injeolmi, which You says is the most popular flavor and her personal favorite. The cake is made with layers of sponge cake flavored with mugwort, an aromatic green plant often used in Korean cuisine, filled with cream and plenty of injeolmi (or roasted soybean powder) and topped with a homemade injeolmi crumble.
The soosoo corn latte at Harucake.
Harucake cake display case.
Made with layers of fluffy Genoese sponge cake and frosted with aerated heavy cream, the cakes hit that “not too sweet” sugar level and come in flavors like yogurt, green grape, and strawberry heavy cream.
The cakes at Harucake may be minimalist in nature, but they're not minimalist in price: slices cost around $15, standard full cakes sell for $70, and lunchbox cakes sell for $30. “It's the biggest complaint we get,” You says of the price. “But we only use the best ingredients.” Although the bakery now has 15 employees, she still personally purchases the organic dairy she uses and spends extra money on a super fine flour that helps create the texture she loves.
Still, the prices haven't stopped the crowds, and Harucake, which You says means “from the heart,” sells more than 1,000 cakes a month. It could sell more, but expansion has been a slow process. The morning team currently bakes fresh cakes every day. Even if that means they run out in the afternoon, you don't want to compromise on quality.
More than six months later, You still considers Harucake to be in a “soft opening.” She is meticulous in the smallest details, from how you are greeted (with a smile and an explanation of each cake flavor) to what temperature the cakes are served at (they should always be slightly cold). You also insist on handwriting each cake.
Ellie You decorates a cake at her Harucake store. “I want to make sure we address every part of the bakery experience,” she says.
“I want to make sure we address every part of the bakery experience.” To ensure this, You works 16 hours a day at the bakery and then manages the bakery's social media when she gets home.
The Korean minimalist cake trend has shifted from Korean bakers to bakers of Asian descent, especially in Los Angeles. Domi, a pop-up bakery owned by pastry chefs Evelyn Ling and Joe Cheng Reed, also makes lovely minimalist bento cakes with Asian-inspired flavors, something the couple added to their menu during the pandemic.
“My sister called me and begged me to make them so she could give them to her friends,” says Ling, who is Chinese-American. The small cakes, decorated in a minimalist style, quickly took off as the celebrations also became smaller.
Kylie Miyamoto, the Japanese-American baker who opened the Tustin-based online bakery Kymoto Co. in 2021, says this style of cake remains incredibly popular: She still sells about 40 cakes a week.
Neither bakery has any plans to stop making these particular cakes anytime soon. Celebrations may be bigger again, but this style of cake is in high demand. Ling says customers buy them as gifts or as cakes for babies' birthdays. Customers also continue to find these pastel color combinations “uplifting,” Miyamoto says. “As a cake artist, I strive to create edible works of art that bring joy.”
Writer Khushbu Shah is the former restaurant editor of Food & Wine and author of the upcoming book “Amrikan: 125 Recipes from the Indian-American Diaspora” (WW Norton).
