Prepared with Pinay pride: Filipino baker shares culture through dessert

By Catherine Espejo
Medill Reports

At 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Erma Cuenca-Price's plane touched down at Boston Logan International Airport. She went to bed, and then her friend woke her at 9 a.m. to tell her the news. Her mother wanted her to return to the Philippines after the tragedy, but Cuenca-Price chose to stay, determined to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a pastry chef in the United States. The date marked a tragedy, but also the beginning of her career.  “I'll never forget it,†she said. 

On Saturdays, Cuenca-Price wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to bake for the South Loop Farmers Market at Printers Row. Her stand, Tropicake Chicago, has been there since the beginning in 2012. Cuenca-Price sells Filipino dishes and desserts because she wanted to share her culture with people who knew nothing about it. She understood it would be hard to reach a new audience, but marketed her products with samples and descriptions.  

“I'm not scared to bring it to the farmers market,†she said. “In the beginning, I was the one and only Filipino.â€Â 

Cuenca-Price, now 51, grew up cooking with her family in Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines. Even as a 10-year-old, she knew she loved it. She graduated with a degree in hotel, restaurant and management from University of Bohol in the Philippines. Then she owned a carinderia, a roadside food stall. 

When she moved to Boston Cuenca-Price first taught baking classes to incarcerated teenagers for the nonprofit Haley House Soup Kitchen, which helped them apply to jobs in hotels and restaurants. After five years at Haley House, the self-taught Cuenca-Price switched to the Ritz-Carlton, where she promised her employer she would prove herself as capable as her formally trained co-workers. She also worked at the Harvard Business School under the dining management company, Restaurant Associates, as the assistant head pastry chef.  

In 2011 Cuenca-Price moved to Chicago when her husband got an offer as director at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. For a year she worked at Girl & The Goat alongside Greg Wade, making bread for Little Goat Diner. Then Cuenca-Price worked at ZED451, a Brazilian restaurant, as the head pastry chef for five years, until 2020. When ZED451 closed for the pandemic, it inspired her to start her own business, Tropicake Chicago Bakery.   

The name came from Cuenca-Price wanting to focus on Filipino desserts – mostly tropical cakes made with mango and pineapple. Her kitchen sits above the Fabulous Freddies Italian Eatery in Bridgeport. She sells her baked goods to cafes like Necessary & Sufficient Coffee and at the South Loop Farmers Market on Thursdays and Saturdays.   

“I noticed that all the Filipino bakeries are always in the suburbs, not even downtown,†Cuenca-Price said. “I decided to bring it to the farmers market to introduce it to non-Filipinos.â€Â Â Â 

Cuenca-Price said she prides herself on bringing attention to traditional Filipino cuisine and desserts, like hopia (mooncake-like pastry), ensaymada (brioche-style pastry), sapin-sapin (rice and coconut dessert) and biko (sweet rice cake). She knows some people will hesitate to try something that may be unfamiliar to them, so at her stand, she has samples with descriptions of the food.  

Cuenca-Price wants people to try her unique twists on traditional dishes. She tweaks recipes, using gluten-free soy sauce, making homemade broth for pancit and adding cheese to her lumpia, a fried spring roll. She knows she deviates from the traditional recipes, which sometimes leads to mixed reviews from some older Filipino customers. “I've worked in the food industry for 20 years, but I'm still learning,†Cuenca-Price said. “I'm listening to feedback, and that's how you grow.â€Â 

She keeps the team small with her younger sister, Eliza Cuenca, and friends who baked with her in hotel kitchens. She and her sister, the middle children out of four, always helped their parents. Cuenca described Cuenca-Price as her mentor and asked her to run Tropicake together. It's always been Cuenca-Price cooking and Cuenca handling the sales.   

The Tropicake stand at the South Loop Farmers Market is popular because customers are recommending desserts to people, emphasizing genuine appreciation through “word of mouth,†she said. Recently, Cuenca-Price made 500 boxes of macaroons for an anniversary party at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for a customer who needed someone capable of baking in large quantities.  

Cuenca-Price is no stranger to producing large orders. “I spent all day baking 1,000-2,000 small treats, especially during Christmas,†she said. 

Four years ago, Jezrel Sabaduquia met Cuenca-Price and her sister at the farmers market. Despite barely knowing him, Cuenca-Price cooked him a family-sized tray of pancit, a traditional Filipino noodle dish. “Erma feels like she's my tita (aunt),â€Â Sabaduquia said. “She feels like my family in Chicago.â€Â 

As for Cuenca-Price's dream for Tropicake moving forward, she hopes to eventually retire and sell her business, because her 15-year-old daughter doesn't want to take over. But for now, she'll be working at the farmers market. She's looking forward to her next vacation to Costa Rica or Portugal, where she'll recharge and get inspiration from trying the food. 

  

 Catherine Espejo is a magazine specialization graduate student at Medill.