Cloud Cake didn’t begin in a kitchen - it began in a boardroom.
Hello, my name is Yu Li. Before moving to the UK, I spent years as an executive in the music industry in China, living the fast corporate pace where meals were squeezed between meetings and there was never time to cook, let alone bake. I loved food deeply, but I lived too quickly to create it.
Everything changed when I moved to Oxford over ten years ago.
My role in life shifted: I focused on my children and on the older generations who needed my attention. For the first time, I slowed down. I learned to cook from scratch - not only the Chinese dishes I grew up with, but also British and Western recipes that were completely new to me. Cooking became a way to build a home, to comfort and to connect.
Baking arrived later, during the quiet and uncertain days of Covid. What started as a small hobby became a deep curiosity: how heat, texture, and simple ingredients can transform into something warm and joyful. Cheesecakes fascinated me first - the soft airiness of Japanese soufflé styles, then the rich depth of Basque caramelisation. I baked, refined, experimented, failed, improved, and baked again.
And in these gentle, deliberate acts, Cloud Cake began to take form.
Today
Cloud Cake is my small, independent baking studio in an Oxfordshire village - a one-woman kitchen guided by craft, patience, and sincerity. Every cake is made in small batches, using carefully selected ingredients and recipes shaped by both my heritage and my adopted home.
People often ask what makes a Cloud Cake taste the way it does.
The truth is simple: technique matters, ingredients matter - but love is the ingredient I never leave out. Love for the process, for the people I bake for and for the quiet ritual of creating something that brings delight to others.
I believe good food doesn’t need noise - just honesty, balance, and care. And my hope is that each Cloud Cake brings a little comfort, a little beauty, and a little calm to your day.
