Vanilla Raspberry Lilikoi Cake

Ahhhhh I love this pretty pinky striped vanilla raspberry lilikoi cake! I made this for a true original, my friend Phanie, who I have written about before – her blog Gang of Five, her IG Stories, she just lays it all out there. I find myself watching her Stories like I’m watching a reality show… she is a prolifically talented mother of three, one of those people who are really excellent at everything they set out to do creatively. She has been so kind to me, too, throughout the years, and her photos have become part of our family memories – from photographing Teddy at 6 months old, to her annual holiday photo shoots, to even taking photos of me before I had my surgery for breast cancer. Every year she invites me out to her birthday party and I can never attend, but this year I was determined to make it, and to show up with a beautiful cake – just because, to show this lady that she means a lot to the people in her life, and that she is special, worthy, amazing, and thought of often by many. I think she is so brave, and powerful, in showing the insides and outs of her family life, her relationship, her parenting, her creativity, the exhaustion of being a working mom with an atypical job.

Motherhood can be absolutely nuts sometimes. It can lift you up to the greatest heights of happiness and it can rip you down to absolute nutrageous insanity. It is beautiful, it is hard, it is so wild, being a mom!

I LIVE FOR SNAPS LIKE THIS. GLOWING CANDLES ON ONE OF MY CAKES AND A GORGEOUS SHIT-FACED QT STANDING ABOVE IT. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY and I am so glad to know you, Phanie Pack! For more of Phanie’s work, or to her hire her for photography or other creative pursuits, check out her website The Pauhaus! xo Lyndsay