Pop-up Wrap-up n Review

Howdy all,

Happy July! We’ve done 6 months into 2025, and this year has been so nuts. I wonder what’s happening in the other timelines. I’m proud of us for sticking it through. 2025 being insane is helping me see how life is so short: to live life helping others, spreading positivity, and embracing yolo.

Tonight, I’m going to Elijah Fox at Lee’s Palace. I’m so excited! His recent album “Ambient Works for the Highways of Los Angeles” is focused on ambient, transportive music for nights that are energized by solitude.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since my pop up. I’m super grateful to everyone who came by. I was expecting a slow day: the weather was being fickle, we had changed the date, and it was Secret Planet’s first pop up of the summer (which apparently is usually slow is what they said afterwards lol). I was surprised at the turn out and am grateful to all my friends and supporters T_T<3

I am always humbled by how much work goes into doing a pop-up, and that’s why I never do them. I tried to start early, but even prepping 3 weeks prior had me scrambling all the way to the finish line.

My timeline looked something like this:

Week -3: R&D and figuring out what to bring while restocking make-ahead items like caramels, cookie doughs, weed butter, matcha fish. I made the chocolate muffins like 3 times because they were so sweet, rich and fudgey in an American way and needed revisions. I think I have the original recipe up on an older substack article.

Week -2: Even More Prep… and processing items from the previous week, which were actions like scooping and freezing cookies, cutting and packaging caramels, vac-sealing, etc. I spent a day making imagery for the caramel packaging, printing, and individually wrapping each candy. The chocolate muffins got faces and ears, but they were still really ugly, making me want to give up on them. They became cute and lovable at the end, so I’m glad I didn’t.

evolution of choco bear order (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right)

Week -1 (the week of the pop-up): The nature of food is that it goes bad, so the majority of the work has to be done right before. This week sucked so hard for me that I disassociated and can’t really remember how much it sucked. I was also juggling working, and I pulled my shoulder trying to move my ice cream machine that was on top of the fridge.

Batters, frostings, and fillings were made on Monday/Tuesday. Muffins were baked and decorated. The cakes were assembled, frosted and decorated. All the madeleines were baked the day before then enrobed in chocolate. I shouldn’t have decided to coat them in real chocolate, not because y’all don’t deserve it but because I was so miserable tempering in a room of hot oven air; I was imagining another version of me microwaving candy melts and was jealous of them.
Then, I, being delusional and having eaten a weed cookie, decided to make Rice Crispy Treats at 2am instead of sleeping. I had gone back and forth on the idea, and my sober self said no because homemade marshmallow goes stale really quickly. But I made them and am alive to tell the tale.
And finally, my partner helped me pack, stamp bags, and make boxes. He doesn’t read my articles, but he’s a real one so thank u *heart*

Pop-ups are so hard for me… I know I’m not the most online brand as I am pretty avoidant on being perceived. I’m not good at remembering to take pictures or promote myself. I never can predict if it’ll be a good event or not, so I try to make the event worth it for me by doing something fun and different. Most times, I try to do too much and stress myself out.
But every time I’ve done one, fans and friends come by, and it means so much to see that people like my work. I’m always super touched, and it makes my day to do a pop-up bc I get to interact with y’all. I appreciate everyone who has supported me all this time.

We also made $170 for the fundraiser! All the mini cakes and cake slices went towards this gofundme, which is run by a friend-of-a-friend. The money goes to Hamza and his family.
Gaza seems so far away, but we are still somehow connected through our communities all the way here in Canada. All this suffering, cruelty, and death that has gone on so long breaks my heart. But there are friends and communities who still believe, organize, and gather strength for what is right. We raised $170 with a few cakes in one day, and I think it shows that there’s always strength when we believe together.

If you couldn’t make it, that’s ok. To the pop up, I brought:

• Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: a gooey brown butter cookie with fair trade chocolate (not to brag but my sister recently said they are the best chocolate chip cookies she’s had and she lives in new york)

• Matcha Sesame Rice Crispy Treats: toasted rice crispy cereal, corn flakes, black sesame, and matcha glued together with homemade brown butter marshmallow

• Chocolate Muffin Bear Friends: dark chocolate muffin with chocolate chunks and fudge sauce, decorated with chocolate cookie ears, each with a unique face

• Yuzu Lemon Madeleines: bear-shaped lemon madeleines with lemon curd coated in a Valrhona Yuzu chocolate shell. I tried to make it a ginger lemon madeleine, but you can’t taste the ginger….*fail*

• Brown Butter Madeleines: fish-shaped brown butter madeleines coated in a Valrhona Dulcey (a toasted, caramelized white chocolate) shell

• Mocha Financier: an almond-coffee-cocoa tea cake with a coffee-steeped whipped chocolate ganache

• Raspberry Caramels: sweet and soft caramels made from real raspberries

• Toasted Caramels: nutty, milky caramels named after toasted milk

• Chocolate Nougat: pillowy, soft egg-white chocolate marshmallow stuffed with pistachios and dried fruit

• Pistachio Strawberry cake for my fundraiser: layers of almond-pistachio brown butter chiffon cake, ginger-strawberry compote, and pistachio buttercream made of pastry cream and Soma Chocolate’s roasted pistachio paste

And some edibles:

• Assortment of 10mg cookies:

  • Brown Butter Chocolate Chip

  • Mini Egg (same as brown butter choco chip but with mini eggs)

  • Matcha Latte (matcha cookie with milky white chocolate)

• Matcha Fish Chocolate Bar

• Year of the Snake Box of Toasted Caramels

• Deadstock caramels: my discontinued flavors in sea salt, dark chocolate, and mango lime. I have finally gotten rid of all of these, so this past pop up was the last chance to get any.

I’m really happy with how everything turned out. I went home and ate the display slice of cake that had been in the elements for like 6+ hours (usually a great way to give yourself diarrhea except I was fine), and it was sooo delicious. The cake was moist but not wet; the pastry cream-based buttercream was nutty, rich, and smooth and paired well with the tangy, fragrant strawberry compote. Probably my best cake yet!

I wish I had gotten more pictures of all the other things I had made. I was especially pleased with the mocha financier, of which I have zero pictures. I added it last minute along with the rice crispy treats, but the financier was complex with sweet-salty chocolate-coffee flavor. I liked that it was one of my more traditional-looking desserts on my display. But yea zero pictures.

I made a cake for my mom’s bday, so I think I’ll write an article about that next time.

See you then!

-Elyse