This year, a stake in Anaheim, California, hosted a special gathering to celebrate the nearby Yorba Linda California Temple that’s currently under construction. Stake members cooked food from different cultures, invited neighbors, waved in passersby, and played music. It grew into a full and energetic community event where strangers became friends.
Later that afternoon, a special committee revealed a project they’d been working on for the past two months: a Yorba Linda Temple cake.
How the Cake Was Created
To prepare for the food festival, the stake president, Scott Hicken, called a “cake committee” of 15 Relief Society sisters. The committee proposed preparing a flat-layer cake, but the president felt prompted to explore a different approach.
“It needs to be a replica of the temple,” he proposed. This idea was born partially out of his desire for the event to capture the Primary children’s attention.
“It was as if he had seen it in his mind’s eye, just what it needed to look like,” the stake communications director, Kelli Price, recalls.
To help the committee bring the cake to life, President Hicken and his wife, Darsi Hicken, created a to-scale, foam-board model of the Yorba Linda Temple for the committee to reference. Cake committee members Monae Linford and Janette Petersen then prepared a timeline for the cake’s construction and a long list of needed ingredients.
Two weeks before the festival, the committee began baking and freezing sections of the cake. Finally, three days before the festival, they began building it.
The cake was comprised of:
- 112 cake mix boxes
- 448 eggs
- 20 pounds of fondant
- 10 pounds of white chocolate
- 90 pounds of buttercream frosting
Carolina Sio, the stake Relief Society president and head of the cake committee, says that President Hicken’s support and belief in the sisters gave them added confidence to complete the cake.
“He was so determined, and he had faith in us that we could get this done,” she says. “And because of that, we were able to keep continuing that spiritual momentum to get that cake built.”
Behind-the-scenes videos were posted to social media showing the committee’s progress. These posts—along with banners outside the stake center, flyers distributed by stake members, email reminders, and invitations passed on from missionaries—helped the community get excited for the festival.
Multiple times throughout the process, the committee would run into trouble and question whether the cake could be salvaged. Each time this happened, they would say a prayer and feel the Lord directing them on how to fix the mistake. They always found a solution.
“Seeing the different ways they were resolving the problems was an experience that I’ll never forget,” Carolina says.
She was reminded of Emma Smith telling the sisters in the founding meeting of the Relief Society, “We are going to do something extraordinary. … We expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls.”
“I was able to see the sisters [who] were baking this cake do ‘extraordinary’ things,” Carolina says. “And it wasn’t easy. ... But we can see the results of that cake.”
The Cake Reveal
The stake members’ sacrifices led to a Spirit-filled gathering. About 600 people showed up to the event, including friends of other faiths.
Toward the end of the food festival, stake members and visitors made their way into the cultural hall of the stake center, and the cake committee rolled out the finished product.
“Everybody started clapping. And then we started singing ‘I Love to See the Temple,’ followed by ‘I Am a Child of God,’ [which] was sung in Spanish, Samoan, Tongan, then English,” Carolina remembers. “The Spirit in that room was just incredible. Everybody was ... so happy.”
The children were transfixed by the cake and even had to be held back by their parents until the singing was done. Then, they all lined up for a slice.
On the wall behind the cake was a collage of temple coloring pages the Primary children had drawn at church the week before. Per President Hicken’s instruction, the children’s involvement was a significant focus of the night.
Extraordinary Results
The event clearly left an impression—on people of all ages.
Both Kelli and Carolina say the event created momentum surrounding the upcoming Yorba Linda Temple open house, which has yet to be announced. It will be California’s ninth temple and the second one in Orange County.
Carolina even recalls hearing enthusiastic whispers about the cake between sisters weeks later while she was in the Newport Beach California Temple.
“I think we have people who, just being in that room, seeing the replica, feeling the Spirit, and singing the songs, realized that the temple is the place where they need to be,” Kelli says. “It’s such a beautiful reminder of [the] unity in our … Church and the Spirit and comfort that can bring each of us. That was a really lovely byproduct of the temple cake.”
“Some people may say it was just a cake,” Carolina adds. “But it was an ‘extraordinary’ cake.”
More articles for you:
▶ 10 interesting facts about President Oaks’s life
▶ 8 inspiring facts about the life of Sister Kristen M. Oaks
▶ The phrase Pres. Oaks just said he wants us to remember
Carry on the conference spirit
Journals will begin shipping in November.
