MyCakes becomes senior citizen’s dessert
April 22, 2010
By Laura Geggel
NEW — 6:00 a.m. April 22, 2010
MyCakes sweetens senior center
It was snowing powdered sugar on the strawberry tarts as 7-year-old Caitlyn Golpe lightly tapped a sieve filled with the sweet stuff over the desserts.
Across the counter, her mother, Cynthia Golpe took a break. She had just baked 36 tarts for the Mount Si Senior Center.
The Snoqualmie mother of four had found some spare time on her hands and decided to fill it by volunteering her bakery expertise for the lunch program at the center.
Seniors have met Golpe’s volunteering verve with ravishing appetites.
After a lunch of French dips and apple cake, many tummies were satisfied.
“I had two pieces,” said Herman Schey, who lives on the Wilderness Rim. “I loved the cake.”
“It’s beautiful, wonderful,” said Juanita Erwin, of Riverbend. “I ate a lot of my lunch, but I ate the whole cake.”
Cynthia Golpe has not only mastered desserts but also design. She grew up in the Philippines, the third of five children.
Her parents owned a bakery with 100-plus employees to mix batter for the flourishing business.
Often, her parents would put her and her siblings to work, decorating cakes, delivering orders and working with customers in the front of the store.
“The best memory for me is not actually decorating or baking, it’s more about selling and being in front of customers,” Cynthia Golpe said. “My dad put me in front of the store and I was just so little, but I was selling.”
Her family also owned a jewelry business, and between her high school and college years, she visited designers in New York to hear what they wanted in their seasonal collections.
She loved the Big Apple, and later attended The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
“It was really all about drawing,” she said. “I love to doodle. If someone’s talking, I draw clothing, I draw cakes.”
She worked with her aunt designing clothing, with clients including Anne Klein, Randolph Duke, Isaac Mizrahi NY and more.
Later, she started her own jewelry company, working with stores like The Limited, Woolworths and Afterthoughts.
In 1991, she met her future husband Eric Golpe on a bus and the two tied the knot in 1993.
“When we met, she told me she sold costume jewelry,” Eric said. “I guess I just naturally assumed she did door-to-door jewelry. She told me ‘not really.’”
Eric had been working as a paramedic, but after the two married, they moved to the Philippines, where he helped manage the family’s bakery business.
He said baking was challenging and that he preferred the business side of things.
Before they married, the two attended the American institute of Baking.
From 2000-2007, they participated with the United States Agency for International Development, traveling to countries in Europe and Russia, where they trained cooks and bakers.
“We were almost ambassadors to the United States, because we represented the United States,” Cynthia Golpe said.
The trip helped both Russians and Americans shed their stereotypes of the other, she said.
After a few moves across the U.S., the couple moved to Snoqualmie in 2008 with their children.
Now, Eric works at Microsoft and Cynthia bakes wedding cakes — and treats for the senior center.
Center chef Jimmy Lee said everyone enjoys Golpe’s creations, especially him because it reduces his workload.
“I think it’s fantastic and very generous of her,” he said.
Pam Whittington, president of the senior center board agreed, although for different reasons.
“I had the lemon cake,” Whittington said. “I’m still dreaming about it.”
Golpe researches each of her recipes, cutting back on sugar and using nonfat milk when she’s able.
“So far, they love it, so I’m happy,” she said.
With the strawberry tarts ready for eating, she planned her next menu, contemplating tiramisu and berry cheesecake.
Anything, she said, that would give a sweet end to lunch and to people’s palates.
Got dessert?
- Lunch is served from noon – 1 p.m. weekdays at the Mount Si Senior Center, 411 Main Ave. S., North Bend. Call 425-888-3434.
- Lunch is $6; seniors pay $3.
Find MyCakes online
- E-mail: cgolpe@hotmail.com
- Website: www.myspace.com/cakes_n_decors
- www.facebook.com/cgolpe
Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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