🍰 Meet the Humble Mastermind Behind this Bushwick Microbakery 🍰

“I’m chasing a memory.”

The Deligram shines a spotlight on the many incredible food artisans of New York — and beyond. In our last feature, Caitlin Hubner of Cait’s Key Lime Pie told us how she makes hundreds of pies out of her Bed-Stuy apartment–and the perfect order for your next diner trip. If you still have a sweet tooth, today’s issue spotlights Mina Park of 99, a nostalgia-fueled Bushwick, Brooklyn-based micro-bakery with the most Instagrammable whipped cream cakes you’ve ever seen.

The Product: Delicately decorated, flavorful fresh cream cakes.
How To Buy: Email hi.ninetynine@gmail.com for all orders, and follow @ninetynin.e on Instagram for information about pop-ups.
Price: $100 - $150, depending on customization and size.

The backbone of everything I'm doing is chasing a memory. My first significant food memory was, I think, my 12th birthday. It was the first time I'd gotten a cake properly, from this Japanese-Creole bakery in the Atlanta area, Artisan Foods, where I grew up. There was white chocolate in the whipped cream and it was a matcha sponge. It was Asian-influenced and had the textures of an Asian cake, but from a different perspective because of the husband and wife (owners). The husband was a Black man from the South and the wife was a Japanese woman and they met working in a kitchen. They opened this fusion restaurant and I honestly felt like that was a blueprint for me: Asian cooking with Southern flavor. They didn’t normally make cakes, but my mom was friends with one of the owners so they made one just for that occasion. It had that kind of intimacy that I can really taste in food. It tasted like it was made with so much love.

It was cool to see an Asian cake in that style because, personally, I can't really take too much sugar. When it comes to cake, buttercream is usually a little overwhelming for me and my parents, too. If we did go out to get dessert, we'd be in the K-town area of Atlanta, where there were these little bakeries, which has influenced a lot of my aesthetic.

I never went to cooking school. My first kitchen job was as a prep cook, at a catering job. My first pastry job was at Cookbook Market in Highland Park. Then I worked at Tartine, and in pastry production in Nightshade. When I first started [my own baking], I was making more pastries, cream puffs, cookies and stuff like that–I was under the impression that's what people wanted–but something felt like it was missing. And then I made a cake. I had always wanted to decorate a cake, but I’ve always been a little intimidated by it, so it was actually a dummy cake. I happened to find these white strawberries and I decorated the cake with it. I took a picture and it got so many responses on Instagram, so I was like, ‘oh, maybe this is something.’ It was fun and I felt like I was able to express myself more through cake. Nostalgia is a huge part of how I build flavors, but then there are times where I accidentally realized two things kind of go together. I'll be testing something I’ve had recently in the Thai market, and then I'll be like, “damn, this guava curd tastes kind of crazy with strawberries and lime zest.”

I started doing pop-ups here and there in California, including a five-course dessert tasting dinner, but I was working in the restaurant industry, so I didn't have much energy for it. It felt really out of my reach. Like, how do I make a pop-up sustainable with the amount of energy that I'm already spending? Also, pop-ups were just not so much a thing before the pandemic. There was a lot of stress in trying to fill the seats and making sure all the tickets were sold — there was really no format to follow. 

I moved to New York October 2020 spontaneously, because it was during the pandemic and my landlord kicked us out with less than a month's notice. At the time, my friend Tyler Lee Steinbrenner from ACQ bread encouraged me to move to New York, and it sounded like an exciting time to be making food. Everything just fell into place after I moved to New York, and I was fortunate to already know people tied to the food scene such as Tyler, and my friend Kat (who invited me to her event at Honey’s the day I landed in NY). Initially, I didn’t have clear intentions, but being surrounded by so many independent, self-motivated, driven people making food inspired me to follow suit and establish my own brand. I wouldn’t be here without that kind of support from day one. I think New York was the audience I never knew I needed–everyone here is so curious and willing to understand your work, despite being from a different background. It really pushes you to have a point-of-view and a narrative. I think New York feels like the most open and receptive audience I’ve experienced so far.

With the right people, I would be involved with a spot in New York, but as far as a standalone bakery, I'm not actually that interested. Honestly, right now I would love to write more and come out with a cookbook or even a baking manual, like a whipped cream cake manual. I'm influenced by those Wilton cake-making books. They're step-by-step photos of piping and are very photo heavy, so much of them are about [Wilton’s] work as a cake artist. It’d be cool to go in that direction. I would like to be published, but right now, I'm just trying to build some trust with people here. I need more people to try my stuff and understand where I'm coming from. So that eventually, it does become a book that is useful to cook out of, instead of something that's just this project I wanted to come out with. I feel a lot of pressure for things to be useful in that way. I want people to trust my recipes. There's a lot of stuff you see online and you don't even know if it tastes good. But a lot of those people have books and stuff and that's not enough for me. Pop-ups help build a reputation in that way. 

Most underrated product: 

The sweet potato cakes are so underrated. I think a lot of people just don't understand the idea of having sweet potato in their cake. Honestly, I can chug a cake like that.

Greatest hit: 

Strawberry Shortcake is always a popular choice. Black sesame is always people's top choice, too. 

How to enjoy a slice of her cake: 

The best way to enjoy a slice of cake is with your friends with tea. The best my cakes ever taste to me, personally, is in the morning. Like the day after, when you wake up and you're just craving a morning pastry and sweetness. I think there's something about it sitting out that makes it taste better. Also, because you don't really care so much about the presentation anymore, you can just attack it with a spoon or fork straight on the plate. 

Why it’s time for sheet cakes to have a comeback:

I started seeing a lot more rectangle cakes, like Hannah Ziskin’s cakes from Quarter Sheet Pizza. She's pretty known for making those quarter sheet cakes. I kept on seeing that and I just thought it was so attractive. Also, I was thinking about feeding a large amount of people because chef Camille Becerra reached out to me for her birthday and she had like 60 guests. I was like, I think this is the moment. 

I was taking pictures of them at Stop & Shop and grocery stores. I always stop and look at them — I like to know what kind of styles are coming out at the grocery store. I just take the elements that I normally use for my round cakes and translate them to a square. It fits perfectly, with all the pearls and stuff like that. It almost looks better on a square. I like that classic element too. I'm not trying to reinvent the sheet cake, I'm just trying to remind you of those Costco cakes but make them really extra — put pearls all over them and stuff like that. That feels like my spin on it.

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Story by Chanel Parks. Edited by Sarah Leon.
Photos by Teddy Wolff for The Deligram.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.