Kitchen Princess opens cake studio in Long Beach

Cynthia Guerra, known as Kitchen Princess, celebrated her cake studio opening in Long Beach on Saturday, October 19. 

The cake studio is for Kitchen Princess customers to pick up their orders by appointment and for any consultations such as wedding cake tastings. 

“I didn't expect people to show up. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I really didn't think a lot of people would show up like that,” Guerra said. “Every customer that I have, has been so excited for me and so supportive.”

An art studio owner in Long Beach noticed people carrying pink boxes left and right that caught his eye. On Mother’s Day, he asked someone holding a pink box where they got it from. Unbeknownst to him, Guerra was running Kitchen Princess from her home studio.

The two spoke and the owner of the art studio offered to rent out the space to Guerra. After looking at the studio, Guerra agreed to rent out the space. 

“When I came in, everything was all black, and everything was really dark. And in my head, I'm like, ‘Oh, my God, this is perfect. Like, this is what I want,” Guerra said. 

“I want something when customers come in, it looks like a cocina (kitchen), you know? [To see me] see me decorating. You can see the shelf with cakes. You could see me do all this,” she continued. 

Guerra is from Long Beach, but she was living in Las Vegas when at 30, she wondered which career she could pursue. After thinking about it, she decided that baking was going to be part of her future.

She felt Vegas wasn’t the place to attend baking courses because of its heavy influence on gambling, bartending, and serving. Guerra looked into courses in Long Beach after her mother suggested looking there. She considered that she would also be around family. 

After some investigating, Guerra decided to take classes at the Chef Tech Cooking School in Long Beach and fell in love with baking. She learned the baking basics and needed to start working on her resume. 

Guerra worked at two bakeries, the second being Susie Cakes in Long Beach. She worked at the bakery for four months until the COVID-19 pandemic started and everything closed down. 

This was a letdown for Guerra because she had just started working toward building up her experience. This caused her to think about what would be the next best move while living through the lockdown. 

“Everybody was scared. Nobody knew what was going to happen. So at home, I just practiced everything, every day. I did not stop. I just kept going,” Guerra said.

“I just kept baking things for myself and things I wanted to do for myself and then posting them on Instagram just for fun. I was just trying to build up my resume,” she added.

During this time, Guerra taught herself how to create her unique cake decorations and piping. She studied videos online, but the rest was up to her because no one was there to help her.  

Cakes weren’t the original baked goods that Guerra wanted to sell. She originally wanted to offer French pastries including croissants, macarons, and danishes. 

It wasn’t until a blogger noticed Guerra’s cakes on her Instagram and asked her to make them one. Guerra understood her request because the lockdown made it difficult for people to buy cakes. After all, bakeries were closed. 

The blogger posted Kitchen Princess’ cake and gained a lot of attention. People began to take notice and started following Guerra’s Instagram page, which currently has 48,000 followers. 

The name Kitchen Princess is inspired by a Japanese manga with the same name after one of Guerra’s Instagram followers suggested she should read the manga because the protagonist reminded her of Guerra. 

What’s unique about Kitchen Princess's Instagram posts is the lack of videos or reels. She’s not on TikTok either. Followers are coming in organically and by word of mouth from customers who support Guerra’s creations. 

The more cakes Guerra created, the more her craft was improving. During her downtime, she worked on goals she had set for herself to accomplish. This helped her sculpt the style of cakes she always wanted to make and set her apart from other cake creations that ended up looking the same. She wanted to be unique. 

One of the main reasons customers order Kitchen Princess cakes is because of Guerra’s special way of piping unique 2D and 3D characters chosen by her customers. Customers have ordered themed cakes with Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Calico Critters, anime characters, and more. 

A big reason why Guerra loves her job so much now is because she grew up loving cartoons and creating them in cakes is important for her. 

“I wanted to learn all the techniques so that way I can make it different from everybody else's and make it more special and personal. If somebody wanted a certain character, I could do that for you, and make it like you create your own cake. I think that's what also makes it more special,” Guerra said. 

Almost two years after the lockdown, Guerra got a job at Colossus in Long Beach where she was able to bake bread, croissants, and more. She still baked her cakes for Kitchen Princess after working in her spare time. 

After doing that for two years, working at Colossus and for Kitchen Princess was starting to get heavy for Guerra. She worked at the bakery starting at 3 a.m., leaving at 11 a.m., and then worked on Kitchen Princess orders from the time she got off from work until 10 p.m. 

Guerra decided last year in 2023 to leave Colossus and work on Kitchen Princess full-time. Since then, she has been excited about her decision and is continuing to create memories through her cakes with her customers.

“Every customer that I have has been so excited for me and so supportive. It is so wild to me because it's just cake. But I think it's more than that for them because now I'm actually making say, their wedding cake. And now they have babies and I'm making their baby's birthday cake. It’s becoming more personal and more special every time,” Guerra said. 

As for the future, Guerra hopes to one day have her own Kitchen Princess brick-and-mortar bakery with employees. 

To order a cake from Kitchen Princess, you can find her on Instagram at @kitchenprincess21.