A sweet ending for L.A.'s 'Cake Lady's' museum
A sweet ending for a one-of-a-kind cake museum was assured Friday when bakery students from a San Fernando Valley vocational school rescued more than a hundred colorfully decorated cakes from a trip to the dumpster.
The elaborately designed wedding and birthday cakes -- actually, frosting-covered Styrofoam -- were kept in glass display cases by cake-decorating expert Frances Kuyper. She operated her museum in Pasadena before moving to a Boyle Heights retirement home.
For a dozen years, operators of Hollenbeck Palms allowed Kuyper to maintain a mini-museum in a small basement room. After "the Cake Lady" died July 15 at age 92, Hollenbeck officials made plans to scrap the 150 cakes.
Holtz was familiar with Kuyper's museum. In the past, she had taken students from a cake-decorating class there to show them examples of expertly done cakes.
"When I called Hollenbeck, they said I had two weeks to find those cakes and that history a home," she said. After asking around for ideas, Holtz decided to find out whether there was room at her school.
-- Bob Pool
Photo: Justin Benolerao takes care with one of the cakes from Frances Kuyper's collection, which have been housed in a retirement home. The cakes are Styrofoam covered in icing. Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times
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