Winnipeg, Manitoba
Cake design that includes Philippine carabao and Canadian polar bear got top prize
By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
A team from a Filipino-Canadian bakery won this year’s The Big Bake: Holiday, which is Food Network Canada’s baking competition.
The team that represented Sugar Blooms and Cakes, located on McPhillips Street in Winnipeg, beat two American teams and took home the $10,000 grand prize with the creation of the “Paw Express Cargo Cake.”
Referred to as Jingle Bakes, Sugar Blooms co-owner Marie Mallari and teammates Geraldine Ong and Erika Rotor, impressed the judges with their ube-macapuno Filipino themed cake within the alloted five-hour period.
Known for its bestsellers Ube Macapuno, Sans Rival and Ensaymada, Sugar Blooms and Cakes is the first ever cake bakeshop from Winnipeg featured on the Food Network, according to a Facebook post of radio station 92.7 FM CKJS.
“It was very surreal to say the least,” said Marie Mallari, head cake artist at the bakery and her team’s lead baker, in a report by winnipegfreepress.com. “Joining the competition, we did not expect to take home a win.”
The team created a nearly five-foot-tall custom cake in five hours.
With the theme “Santa Paws,” the bakers decided to create edible replicas of balikbayan boxes, which are cargo boxes filled with gifts, toys, and goodies that some Filipino people send to family back home.
“They can’t be there physically, but in a way that’s their way of celebrating Christmas with their families,” Mallari said of their design idea.
The final design included a carabao (a water buffalo native to the Philippines), a rooster and mice.
They also included a a polar bear dressed in a Santa suit to pay homage to their home province, Churchill, Manitoba.
Since the episode of their victory aired, Sugar Blooms and Cakes has been seeing an influx of customers.
“It was insane. It was so busy. Our customers are so proud, especially the ones who have been with us for years,” Mallari gushed.
Sugar Blooms and Cakes opened in 2011 at a smaller location on Selkirk Avenue, seven years after Genevieve Melegrito, the bakery’s owner and Mallari’s mother, immigrated to Winnipeg with her family from Papua New Guinea.
Melegrito, who was born in the Philippines, used to have a cake business in Papua New Guinea.
She then expanded and opened a new location on McPhillips Street.
Mallari, who was studying to become a chiropractor, soon found a knack for cake decorating and decided to pursue it
The company’s cakes have won many awards from Seven Oaks Foundation – One Sweet Affair Cake Competition, to receiving coverage from Canadian bridal Magazine Weddingbells, according to 92.7 FM CJKS.