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BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – For Lili Adie and Laura Potter (Rose), sharing food is about showing love. Their shop, L&L Bakery, is celebrating its second anniversary on July 26.
The mother-daughter duo has been baking and decorating cakes for over a decade, but only recently opened a brick-and-mortar in the sleepy seaside town of Blaine, Wash.
When Laura’s kids were very small, she became a single parent. To make ends meet, she started decorating cakes for a little extra cash. She had always loved baking and cooking as a hobby — she even went to culinary school in San Diego for a year after high school.
Laura’s cakes were in high demand, but because she was working full time, she usually wouldn’t take more than one major order in a weekend. Lili remembers her and her siblings helping with deliveries and being involved in the process from a young age.
“It was kind of exciting to be the one to show up and present this amazing big cake and be like, in the spotlight even though we’re not spotlight people at all,” Lili said.
When Lili got older, she worked in the medical field for a time. Her mom’s cakes were always in demand. All of her orders came from word-of-mouth recommendations.
“Then I was really busy, and I told Lili, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ And I said, ‘I think you can do it,” Laura said.
Lili and Laura slowly expanded their operation for around five years before they officially started the business in 2019. They started collaborating with other local business owners, like Gary Slavin, who at the time owned the Rustic Fork and now owns the speakeasy-themed grill Gateway1890.
The duo wanted to do a brick-and-mortar for a few years, but plans fell through, and they kept pushing it off. Maybe next year, maybe next year, maybe in five years or so.
“We saw that Blaine needed something like this. There wasn’t anything that was a space where people could come in and there’s coffee and dessert,” Laura said. “And so even though we had a passion for this and we wanted to do this somewhere, we saw a need here.”
“We’re just very connected with Blaine in general,” Lili added.
L&L currently sells cakes baked with beer from Beach Cat Brewing, a Birch Bay-based taproom that recently opened a second location in Bellingham. Lili is currently concocting a cookie recipe with the perfect level of chewiness to get frozen into an ice cream sandwich. She hopes to use ice cream from Edaleen Dairy across the street.
Even before they opened the doors at their current shop, they were flooded with community support.
“I think the main thing is that we just love people so much. Sharing food with people has been something that has been in our family for so long,” Lili said.
They love their current location: the families that stop in for treats, the single people who come by for an after-work pick-me-up, the young man who comes in to work on his novel several times a week.
Lili said one customer compared the vibe to a Hallmark movie, where you walk in and know everyone’s names and the person behind the counter knows your order.
The current location does have its challenges, however. Lili and Laura say that they are at max capacity for electricity use in the space, so it would be difficult to add something like a new freezer.
They are booked more than a month and a half out for wedding cakes, all of which are decorated by Lili.
“The dream is to get a big central baking facility and have maybe a couple shops. But at the moment, we’re just kind of taking it easy so that way we can get the experience and do a good job with each step that we take,” Lili said.
In celebration of the shop’s second anniversary, Lili and Laura will be giving out a free small cookie with every purchase on July 26. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Blaine Food Bank.
We Are Whatcom is a weekly column featuring Whatcom County residents making a positive impact on the community. To submit a Whatcom County resident to be featured, click here.