Who is Libby, and is she a real person?
Yes. I’m Libby Savage, and I bake, photograph and eat everything that goes on this site. I am not a trained pastry chef and I have never worked in a bakery. I am the person who decided, somewhere around my mid twenties, that a store-bought cake was never going to say the thing I wanted it to say, and that I would rather ruin a few of my own than settle for it.
How did a dessert blog start?
With a lopsided birthday cake. It was my own birthday, I did not want to stand at a counter describing what I wanted to a stranger, so I made it myself. It leaned. The frosting was too warm. It was also the best thing I had eaten in months, and I was hooked on the part where you get to decide exactly how something looks and tastes. Lili Dessert is where the results of that habit go, so I only have to figure each one out once.
What will I actually find here?
Three things I make, and one thing I cannot stop fussing over. The baking lives in three sections:
- Cake Decorating is the biggest one, and it is aimed at people without a piping bag full of professional tools. Birthday cakes you can decorate with your hands, cakes that skip fondant, tiered and heart-shaped cakes that hold their shape, and designs simple enough to actually attempt the night before.
- Dessert is the everyday side: the recipes I make when there is no occasion at all, just a craving and an hour.
- Baking Tips is the how and the why. The small fixes, the substitutions, the reasons a bake cracked or sank, so the next one does not.
On the site: Cake Decorating, Dessert, and Baking Tips
So why is there a Home Decorating section on a dessert site?
The honest answer is that it started as a side effect of photographing cakes, and then I fell for it completely.
When you shoot a dessert, you quickly learn that half the picture is everything behind the plate. The shelf, the wall, the rug, the light. I spent so long rearranging the room behind my cakes that the room became its own project. Now I collect the things I was already hunting for anyway: shelving and bookshelf ideas, rugs that warm up a space, wall and bedroom decor, and the un-glamorous upkeep like getting a stain out of a carpet. It is the same instinct that makes me smooth a border around a cake, just pointed at the room the cake sits in.
So this is the part of the site that is unapologetically personal. If you came only for the baking, the three sections above are yours and you can happily ignore this one. But a cake looks better in a room you love, and I could not keep pretending the room did not matter to me.
On the site: Home Decorating
Are you a professional chef or an interior designer?
No, and I think that is the useful part. Everything here comes from doing it at home, getting it wrong, and doing it again, not from a certificate. That also means my recipes are not medical or dietary advice and my decor ideas are not professional installation instructions. Where something can actually go wrong, like anchoring a heavy shelf or mixing cleaning products, I will say so, and you should treat a licensed professional’s guidance as the one that wins.
How does Lili Dessert make money?
Through affiliate links, mostly Amazon. If you buy something through a link here, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If a post is ever sponsored, it says so at the top. None of it changes which cake I actually think is worth your Saturday.
The fine print, in plain terms
- Recipes are a starting point, not nutrition advice. I am not a dietitian or a doctor. Check ingredient labels yourself for allergens, and if you have a medical or dietary condition, talk to a professional before following anything here.
- Bake safely. Follow safe internal temperatures and storage for anything with eggs, dairy or cream, and do not leave finished bakes sitting out longer than they should.
- Tiered and structural cakes. Advice on stacking, dowels and heavy tiers is general. A tall cake that is not properly supported can collapse, so build in the support the design needs.
- Anchor your furniture. Shelves, bookcases and wall units must be secured to the wall following the manufacturer’s weight limits and hardware, especially with children or pets in the home. Decor never overrides a product’s safety instructions.
- Cleaning solutions. Test any homemade cleaner on a hidden patch first, keep the room ventilated, and never mix cleaning chemicals such as bleach and ammonia.
- Affiliate disclosure. Lilidessert.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
About Me:
- Full name: Libby Savage
- Email: [email protected]
- Role: Founder, baker and writer, Lili Dessert
- Based in: Portland, Oregon, USA
- Background: Self-taught home baker. Started decorating her own birthday cakes, then began photographing her bakes and styling the spaces around them, which grew into a home decorating habit of its own. Not a professional pastry chef or interior designer.
- Focus: Cake decorating, dessert recipes, baking tips, and home decorating
- Writing since: 2025
- Pinterest: pinterest.com/lilidessertchef
