The next three bakeries we tried were fairly close to Cupertino, with a couple in downtown Los Gatos and one literally down the street from our reception venue. For the reviews, I decided to take off the portions rating from the bakeries. It seemed unfair, since I was rating more as better, when it doesn’t really matter as long as you get an idea of what their cakes are like. Plus more isn’t always better, especially if you don’t like the cake. I always feel bad leaving leftovers, but believe it or not, sometimes you can only take so much cake… especially if you’ve just had lunch and your fiancé doesn’t like sweets.
Also, in case you’re curious about Kelvin’s point of view, so far he says all my grades are too high :P
Bakery 4 – Icing on the Cake
Icing on the Cake is another Yelp favorite. Located on a downtown Los Gatos corner close to 17, Icing on the Cake also sells ready made individual desserts and dessert cakes at their counter. Like their website says, they hold cake tastings every 1st and 3rd Saturdays on a first-come-first-serve basis. Kelvin and I dropped by on a Saturday afternoon to check out their cakes.
They were pretty busy when we arrived, even with several salesladies working behind the display of cakes. There are counters to the side, and I noticed a couple looking over wedding binders with one of the sales girls. I waited for them to be done, but it looks like they weren’t going to be anytime soon, so instead I bugged a random lady (totally forgot her name) behind the counter. Once she knew I was here for cake tasting, she immediately came over to the side to start our consultation, so I guess you just ask any sales rep to help you out with cake tasting.
A couple already doing their cake consultation
At the counter, she started taking notes on the quote sheet, asking us the typical questions (date, location, # of people, etc.). The bottom of the quote sheet has all the cake and filling flavors, which she went over with us. She asked us to put number next to combinations of cake, filling, and frosting we wanted to try. For example, if we wanted to try chocolate cake with mocha buttercream, we’d put a “1″ next to both “chocolate cake” and “mocha buttercream”. Then if we wanted to try white cake with chocolate fudge, we’d put a “2″ next to “classic white” and “chocolate fudge”. We picked five combinations, which were mostly white or chocolate cakes with various fillings, all with white butter cream frosting. She then ran off to the back to make the combinations we selected, while we looked at binders of their past works. I think this is an excellent cake tasting methodology; you basically build your own cake sample.
We checked out their binders, and I wasn’t particularly impressed. They only do buttercream cakes, so no super fancy designs that require fondant. We’re kinda iffy on fondant anyway, but their buttercream cakes didn’t look particularly great either. While it’s hard to get buttercream to be completely smooth, their buttercream cakes weren’t as smooth as other bakeries we’ve seen, and Kelvin particularly disliked that since he’s majorly bothered by uneven surfaces. They also don’t do shapes of cake other than round. So if you’re looking for a super fancy or very individualized cake, this probably isn’t the place to get it. However, whatever simple designs they do do, it’ll be covered in the cake cost.
The saleslady came back out with the samples, explained each sample, and left us to try them on our own, which I appreciate. It’s less anxious to try cake without someone from the bakery watching you. Another thing I appreciated was that she came back and gave us water as we were trying cake. And we really needed the water, cuz their cakes are really sweet. REALLY sweet. It’s the kind of cakes I always thought were popular in America, with the sugary frosting and stuff. Once I started regularly buying cakes from local bakeries that were pretty light, I thought maybe it was a misconception I had. But after reading the 150+ raves of the place on Yelp, maybe I was right after all. The cakes seemed pretty fresh, as the cake was fluffy, but Kelvin still felt the cake was “gritty” (whatever that means) and didn’t like the texture. I don’t remember the cake flavor, as I felt it was overwhelmed by the fillings and frosting. Kelvin hate sweets cuz “they make my teeth hurt”, and he said these samples were making his teeth hurt. We didn’t try what she said were their two most popular flavors (banana and apple spice) since Kelvin would never like them, but I wonder if they were any better at calming down the sugary taste.
Once we finished, she went over prices with us. She gave us numbers for a 90-person cake and 110-person cake (they really count every square inch on that cake, I guess) for our 100 person reception on the quote sheet, which we got to keep for our own reference. She told us we were welcome to come back again to either do more cake tasting or move on to the next step. The lady overall was good about questions and service, and I really like how they organize their cake tastings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stand their super sweet cakes, so this place definitely will not be an option for us. Before actually trying any cake, I had contemplated getting a dessert cake for Anna’s b-day or getting Kelvin a delicious-looking mint chip cupcake, but I obviously changed my mind after the cake tasting. Clearly, this place lives up to its name of “Icing on the Cake”.
Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): A
Presentation (based off photos): C
Taste: C- (I feel like giving something lower would mean they “don’t pass” as a bakery :P )
Favorite flavors: None.
Price: Starts at ~$7.40 a slice for 110 people, but it was more like $7.60 for 90 people, so maybe it varies with size. Delivery fee to Cupertino is $80.
Bakery 5 – La Patisserie
Unlike the previous bakeries, we have had cake from La Patisserie before… several times actually. Sandra recommended this bakery to me a while back, and we haven’t stopped going since. I was expecting good cake based on our past experiences, but who knows how their cake samples would be. La Patisserie was the first place I called for a cake tasting, tho they couldn’t schedule me on a weekend until a couple weeks later. My mother joined Kelvin and me for our cake tasting appointment with Mojgan (I’m still not sure how to pronounce this; I kept thinking her name was Marjan from how she was pronouncing it) on a nice Sunday afternoon.
We sat at regular cafe seating, and after she got our basic information, the first thing we were presented with was three binders of cake pictures. She gave us prices upfront ($5.75 a slice for buttercream, and $6.75 a slice for fondant), and I was taken aback since I wasn’t expecting their prices to be so reasonable. Looking at their binders, their cakes had pretty decent presentation, as most were very clean and smooth. Mojgan was present for much of our album browsing time, so she’d give us descriptions of some of the cakes we were looking at. I was really surprised at some of the buttercream cakes they had pictures of; I would have sworn they were fondant from their smoothness. Similar to previous cake tastings, I pointed to several decorations and asked for cost, and most of the time, she’d say it’s included in the cost. Fondant ribbons? Scrolling? Beading? Square cakes? All covered. The only thing I remember that she said cost extra was a giant fondant ribbon decoration (you can see a couple examples of it on the website) and fondant flowers. Even though she told me fondant flowers cost extra, she said pointed out that the sakura flowers we saw in a couple pictures were covered in the cake price. I asked if they could imitate any cake I wanted, she said they could and to send any pictures of cakes I like, but she kept it real by saying, “Don’t bring us a picture of a castle, because we’re not going to do that.”
Then to the tasting. Mojgan brought out a plate with four circular samples, and it was even accented with a little bit of chocolate frosting. Along with the nice presentation, La Patisserie was also the second bakery to let us taste their fondant. Extra bonus points awarded for letting us try 3 kinds of waxy frosting: regular fondant, chocolate, and white chocolate. Despite the three different flavors, they all tasted like gross sugar wax, and we didn’t eat much of them. The fourth sample without any fondant instead had a buttercream flower. It’s nice how we could taste the various cake decorations. The samples had a larger ratio of mousse filling to cake, and Mojgan explained to us this was to make sure we could taste the filling. In the actual wedding cake, there’d be more cake. She left us alone to try the samples. All their samples we tasted were yummy, just like the dessert cakes we’ve had from them before. Everything had the right amount of sweetness, but still rich and creamy with obvious flavors. Kelvin even liked some of the fruit flavors, and he generally hates fruity stuff. This was the first time my mother had their cakes, and she also liked the samples. We scarfed everything up, with exception of the fondant pieces.
Mojgan came back again for some final questions. There wasn’t a sample contract for us to take home; the quote sheet didn’t have any information on it aside from whatever she wrote down. However, we asked her about all the usual deposits and fees, and she wrote every detail on the back of the quote sheet for our reference. We found out that, for some reason, La Patisserie has the most expensive delivery fee, even though they’re only 1.5 miles down the street from our reception venue! Like 3 times more than average! It sort of put a damper on the reasonable cake price, so I’m hoping we can negotiate this down. They also have a $250 deposit for using their cake stand that is refunded when the stand is returned. I’m not sure if we have to use it… I sure hope not. There was a cake flavors menu in one of the binders that would have been nice to take home, as their website only has pre-made dessert cakes listed. However, she said I could email her for it, and I eventually did do that and got a copy through email. So not much in terms of documents to take home with you, but the cake tasting itself was A+ in our book. Even with the ridiculous delivery fee, the overall price is still comparable to other bakeries. La Patisserie would be the obvious frontrunner at this point if it weren’t for the delivery fee. I hope they can do something about that… I know Kelvin is pretty convinced to book here regardless.
Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B
Presentation (based off photos): A-
Taste: A
Favorite flavors: I liked all of them. Kelvin definitely liked the chocolate cake with chocolate mousse best, as he ate most of that sample.
Price: Starts at $5.75 a slice. Delivery fee to Cupertino is $150 (OMGWTFBBQ).
Bakery 6 – Fleur de Cocoa
I accidentally scheduled my Fleur de Cocoa appointment right after the La Patisserie one because I thought La Patisserie was the next Sunday. Thankfully, I didn’t schedule the same time, and La Patisserie didn’t take very long, so there wasn’t any rush. I contacted Nicola of Fleur de Cocoa through email to arrange the appointment. I also had to select the cakes I wanted to try beforehand. They only have four samples for you to try, and you can only try two of them for free. (Extra samples are $5.65.)
We arrived at Fleur de Cocoa a few minutes early, and the place was freaking packed. (In fact, I even ran into an old high school classmate.) The storefront sells individual desserts, cafe beverages, and a few lunch items. Apparently, business is good. I was eventually able to let somebody behind the counter know I was here for a cake tasting, and Nicola came over and greeted me. She asked if I was the 2:30PM appointment (I was the 3PM), and she seemed disappointed I wasn’t them, as that means she got a no-show. She handed me a giant album to look at pictures of their cakes, but there was no place to sit down because they were so busy. In fact, there wasn’t any place to stand without blocking somebody from something. Eventually, table cleared towards the back, and we rushed over to claim it.
It was a lot easier to look at the album sitting down, and their cakes were very nice looking. Nicola came over to talk to us, though we weren’t presented with any information sheets. She had a quote sheet for herself to write down our basic information, but nothing for us to take home. Instead, she grabbed a cafe menu to write all the main contract details like deposits and prices. Going through the binder and asking about the costs of design details, I didn’t really get a good idea of how much things cost. I felt a lot of the answers to my questions were vague; I think she prefers to know a final design before throwing out numbers for design elements, especially since she doesn’t make the cakes (her husband does). The cake per slice was the priciest so far, so if we got a cake here, any additional cost for design wouldn’t be an option anyway.
The cake tasting comprises of two individual desserts from their counters, hence the $5.65 additional cost for tastings outside of the two given samples. We chose their signature Satin cake and their Fleur de Vanille. Both were very… mousse-y. Their wedding flyer states their cakes are heavily mousse based, but I expected a little more cake. I’m pretty sure Nicola also told me that the actual wedding cakes would have more cake, but I’m confused now since their flyer does state their cakes are mostly mousse, so maybe I misunderstood her. My cake desires are more traditional, I guess; I really wasn’t digging this mousse stuff. Even though it was mostly mousse, it was still incredibly sweet. My mother and I had a hard time finishing off the desserts (felt bad wasting it), and Kelvin of course wouldn’t have more than a small taste of either. Quality and freshness for the samples were very good, and I can see other people liking this sort of cake (and willing to pay a premium for it); it just wasn’t for us.
After we finished the samples, there wasn’t really much more to ask Nicola, so our cake tasting was finished pretty early. This place was very pricey, and we didn’t like their cake, so Fleur de Cocoa won’t be an option for us.
Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B-
Presentation (based off photos): A-
Taste: C+
Favorite flavors: None.
Price: Starts at $8 a slice. She forgot to write down the delivery fee to Cupertino on my cafe menu, but I believe it was $75.
New thing I learned today: “Fleur” is French for “flower”.
