SnowBear Bakery

Not really a huge selection compared to Anna’s but they have decent Asian cakes, and not too sweet.
The hazelnut cake is what I’ve had in the past, a bit on the dry side.
Pickup is actually on their Granville St location in Marpole.
English limited.

We are back, we liked their cakes so much we decided to get three for our wedding. Cakes were made on time and everyone loved it. Thanks again

How is it possible to make something so cute you don’t want to slice into it’s head?
Well that’s what happened when I ordered a birthday cake for my little sister at Snowbear Bakery. A little on the pricey side (8 inch cake for about $ 70) but the cake was well worth it. Ordering my cake was easy, I showed them a picture of what I wanted the cake to look like and we discussed how we could make it happen. However, if you’re not sure, there’s a ton of photos and examples displayed on their windows and in a book in the store. There’s extra options (for a price) to change the flavour of the cake (like matcha cake) and filling (like mangoes) too!
After picking up the cake, which was wrapped up protectively in a big box and ribbons… the Happy Birthday chant was started and my cake was revealed. It was so cute my sister didn’t event want to cut but the knife ended up carefully slicing it’s way through to share an airy, fluffy and moist sponge cake with fresh and light fruits inside. I enjoyed the goldilock’s amount of thinnly piped icing covering the cake — not too heavy and not too light.
I enjoyed the details of making all the cake edible — like the Pocky sticks used to make the ears of the cake stand up!
Overall, a very happy sister and happy me. Good cake. Good service. Next time I’ll hopefully go in there to try some of their already made baked goods, which made the bakery smell all so familiar with carby goodness.

The cakes are super cute and they have a great variety of cartoon characters. The fillings are light, no super sweet. I found it a bit too creamy for my own taste, but some prefer that. The service was pretty good as the owner tried to accommodate as much as possible.

Officially, my favorite (favorite, whatever) Asian bakery in town!!! And might I add, there is absolutely no shortage of them around! Hehe that rhymes.
They have a large selection of character cakes (anything from Angry Birds to more Doraemon and everything in between). You need to preorder a few days before and you can pick from a few flavors (mango, fresh mango, chestnut, cherry, fruit), personally I like the fresh mango, the mangoes are sweet and compliment the cream perfectly!
Also they have a ton of small pastries, their taro mooncake flaky pastry… A++. Awesome bread and sweet bread. Cookies are also good, but they might have been on the shelves for a bit long since they were a tad soggy. My favorite thing about this place is that all of their items are not too sweet, I hate having to drown in gallons of water after eating a guilty treat.
Only complaint is that it is a small shop and service can be slow since people stand and talk forever. Also the place itself is sort of plain — no fancy shelves or design like Maxims or even PInetree which is as lackluster as it gets.

If you are visiting the Aberdeen mall by chance, skip out on the food court and head over to this nearby strip mall and check out SnowBear. The shop itself isn’t much to look at, but inside you will find beautiful and delicious treats. They have a lot of interesting sounding stuff like Taro Mousse, and a lot of their specialty treats feature lovely flourishes (the Taro Mousse for example has a little chocolate violin on top and «gold» sprinkles). Lots of savory buns too. As Marc D. said, they have some slightly different takes on your classic Chinese bakery goodies. We tried one of the roll cakes (chocolate matcha), and the filling did have an almost salted butter quality, but not in an overwhelming way. It definitely amplified the chocolate and green tea flavor. While you’re there, check out their display book of specialty cakes they’ve made in the past, they are really cute. I’ll definitely be back to try more.

* Hidden away Chinese bakery with nice buns *
This little unassuming bakery in a tiny strip mall puts out some excellent product. I’ve been a few times, and keep forgetting to review it.
On my latest visit I had the red bean bun. They shape this in a pretty flower shape, instead of the classic round bun. The bean filling was not overly sweet (which is a good thing from my perspective), the bun itself was fluffy, fresh, and still warm from the oven. Delicious! Photo:
On other visits I’ve sampled their swiss roll (excellent), cream bun (very good with that slightly salty cream filling), and their BBQ pork bun (tender BBQ pork in a fluffy bun). All have been very good.
They also seem to have quite a business in custom cakes for special occasions.
Great little spot with nice buns!