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Orange, blue and white frosting adorns the multitude of cakes of graduating UTEP Miners as commencement season is on the horizon. Many local cake businesses such as The Cake Boutique and Thaily’s Treats, say they receive numerous amounts of orders for graduation season.
Thaily Rodriguez started her business in May 2020 when she was inspired by her mother who taught her how to bake at a young age. During graduation season, Rodriguez receives a spike in orders in those most cherished summer and winter months.
“With winter graduation season, you still see it and it’s really weird because sometimes it goes all the way to Christmas,” Rodriguez said. “So, it’s like Christmas, little gifts and parties and then graduation parties, so it’s a mixture of everything for sure.”
As graduation quickly approaches this December, Thaily is starting to receive orders even outside of her normal business hours.
“My heavy order days are for sure Friday (through) Sunday and every day varies, But I want to say the usual is like three or four orders a day and then that varies with cakes, with strawberries, or with bigger orders,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez says some of her more spontaneous orders ask for a specific “meme” on the cake. She says she prides herself on taking the request and putting her twist on it.
“A lot of orders that are made, at least for my business, are a lot of meme type of orders,” Rodriguez said. “I like to pride myself in that I make almost everything mine, so when people ask for a specific cake I always kind of say, ‘I’m using this as my inspiration,’ but for them not to expect the exact same thing because I do think every baker has their own little style that they can add in.”
Cakes are unique in their own ways based on design and inspiration. An even more unique twist specific to The Cake Boutique is their creation of putting cake into cans for “cakes on the go.”
Camilla McCord Vasquez is the manager and partial owner alongside her mother for The Cake Boutique. The business first opened in 2010 after her mother learned how to bake growing up in Mexico from her father who owned a panaderia.
“When she (her mother) came to the U.S., that was something that she was like, ‘Well, I can do this really well,’” Vasquez said. “When I was very little, she sold out of the house, and she was finally able to open in 2010.”
During graduation season, the bakery says they prefer having orders about two months in advance.
“Normally we’re only a week in advance for customs, but graduation season gets crazy because it’s not only a ton of orders, it’s complicated ones,” Vasquez said.
Back in 2022, the bakery received an order to build the Bhutan Temple from UTEP’s campus which took about seven hours.
“Normally it’s about a week in advance, but sometimes we get some crazy designs where it’s like no, that needs to be at least a month in advance,” Vasquez said.
While the business is known for its many orders of cakes in a soda can, they can also be bought at Circle K, a vending machine at Cielo Vista Mall and outside The Cake Boutique.
Graduating is a monumental moment that happens once or a couple of times in life, and getting creative with cakes, tastes and designs is what many families want to celebrate a loved one’s greatest moment. Local cake businesses in El Paso want to help achieve this by sharing congratulations to those graduating students.
For more information on booking or offered services, you may reach Thaily Rodriguez on Instagram @thailystreats or order from The Cake Boutique online at THECAKEBOUTIQUEEP.COM.
Avery Escamilla-Wendell is the multimedia editor and may be reached at [email protected] or Instagram @by_avery_escamilla
