SusieCakes

Update Reviews, April 2021

I used to eat a fair number of SusieCakes cupcakes (and, to a lesser extent, cakes).  Not because I ever particularly loved them, but, because they often wound up at my office up for grabs.  I always found them to be "ok" but not great, although their carrot cake is pretty marvelous, as you've read about before.

I'll spare you a general overview of SusieCakes since I've reviewed it so many times before and just leave you with the latest round of cupcakes, this time all enjoyed at a birthday party, during socially distanced COVID days, where cutting cakes and passing around cake slices was not the thing to do.

Red Velvet.

"Deep red, moist cake lightly flavored with cocoa, topped with traditional cream cheese frosting."

I've had this before, and never found it remarkable, but, I wanted something other than chocolate and vanilla, and it was the only other option at the party.

The frosting didn't taste very strongly of cream cheese, but it did have a bit of a tang, and was more interesting than the standard vanilla frosting from SusieCakes.

The cake itself was good -  moist, dense, some slight flavor to it, light cocoa?

Overall, "fine", but not remarkable.  More interesting than vanilla.  ***.

Red Velvet: Inside.

I had forgotten that SusieCakes always sorta stuffs their cupcakes, this one seemed even legit stuffed, down to the core.  They use a great amount of frosting on top to begin with, so this generous amount of additional frosting inside is just a lovely bonus.

Vanilla Blue.

"Vanilla cupcake with SusieBlue vanilla buttercream frosting."

Vanilla-vanilla? Now that is, too "vanilla".  Bo-ring.  SusieCakes jazzes up the basic vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream to use a "signature retro-blue vanilla frosting", just like their signature celebration cake.

Spoiler: no, it doesn't taste "blue".  It is just sweet buttercream, I don't really taste vanilla, just, very very sweet buttercream.   It is a bit cloying.  The color is fun though, and I loved the confetti sprinkles.

The cake itself was good, standard vanilla, but moist, good crumb.  Nothing spectacular, but good.

Overall,  also "fine", cake better than frosting, and not one I'd ever seek out.

***.

Update: I found I prefer this warmed up, with the frosting kinda melted into a glaze, and a scoop of sweet ice cream ... then it was ***+.

Chocolate Vanilla.

"Chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting."

Next up, chocolate cupcake, classic white vanilla buttercream.

The frosting tasted the same as the blue version, just, very sweet.  Eh.

The cake was ok, moist, decent chocolate flavor.

Again, overall, "fine", better cake than frosting, but not particularly interesting.

***.

Chocolate Chocolate.

"Chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting."

And last but not least, the double chocolate: chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

This frosting was actually fairly distinct, although also quite sweet.  It did have a fudge-like chocolate nature to it.

Cake was the same as the previous cupcake, moist enough, ok chocolate flavor.

Slightly more interesting than the chocolate vanilla version due to the more intensely flavored buttercream, but still just ***.

Update: Of course, once I warmed it, and paired it with salted caramel cocoa nib ice cream (!), it was magical.  Even ****.  Something about warm chocolate cake and ice cream just does it for me ...

Update Reviews, 2019-2020

People in my office order a lot of desserts for celebrations, and luckily for me, they share leftovers.  With a location nearby, SusieCakes makes a fairly regular appearance, usually just cupcakes, but, over the years, I've now had the chance to try a very large number of items.

You can start with my earlier reviews (below), that were good but not great, and then come back here for more context.

Well, I'm sold on SusieCakes now. Some of the items aren't that great, but, their hits are *serious* hits. This is likely my favorite carrot cake in the bay area, the seasonal pumpkin items (bread pudding, pumpkin cheesecake) were top notch, and I've even found new favorites in the cupcake lineup that I truly enjoy.

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Seasonal Layer Cake: Red, White & Blueberry Vanilla Cake. July 2019.

"Four layers of vanilla cake layered with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and a light vanilla pudding, frosted with fresh whipped cream."

I had a previous version of this cake, and didn't care for it much at all.  But this?  This was delicious.

The cake was super moist, with a slight buttermilk tang, and the pudding component made it all that much more moist.  The berries were juicy and sweet.  The whipped cream made it almost come together like a strawberry shortcake.

I really enjoyed it, and went back for seconds literally immediately.  Would gladly get again.

Seasonal: Strawberry Rosé. (August 2019).

"Our vanilla cupcake infused with pink champagne and baked with fresh strawberries, frosted with a pink champagne buttercream."

I was drawn in to this one, which turned out to be a seasonal speciality, mostly because it looked different from all other SusieCakes cupcakes.  The frosting was piped differently, there were no contrasting colorful sprinkles.

I tasted the frosting first, thinking it would likely taste like strawberries, as it was pink, but I didn't taste the berry flavor I was expecting.  Instead, it was sweet, but had a slightly more subtle flavor that I couldn't pinpoint.  It didn't seem like the standard SusieCakes pink vanilla buttercream either.

Of course, once I looked it up, I found that indeed, it wasn't the plain vanilla buttercream, it was pink champagne buttercream.  I certainly wouldn't have identified it that way, but, it was still good, although very, very, very sweet.  More on that soon.

Although the cake is named "rosé", after the sparkling wine I imagine, I'm fairly certain the distinct piping job was done to look like a rose flower, and it really was pretty.  It glistened with white pearl sugars on top.

Seasonal: Strawberry Rosé: Inside.

The rest of this cupcake is what made it more interesting however.

The cake was ... well, quite different from all others I've had from SusieCakes.  Their cupcakes tend to be very perfectly baked, never dry, never crispy on the exterior, and certainly never underbaked.  So I was fairly surprised when I cut into this one, to find that it seemed gooey.

The cake was loaded with fresh strawberries, which clearly just added a ton of moisture to it.  It also seemed like it hadn't risen all the way.  I actually really liked this, and didn't mind that the cake wasn't really cake-like, and was more like a strawberry mush with some cake around it, but if you want a normal cake base, this isn't it.  It was sweet and fruity, and I enjoyed it.

The one negative thing I'll say though is that the ratio of frosting to cake was just too off on this one.  I do love how SusieCakes is insanely generous with the frosting (ok, really, a bit too generous, but I still love it), but this one, I think due to the deflated nature of the cake base, was literally 70% frosting to 30% cake, which, given the very sweet frosting, was just too much.  Even I couldn't quite handle too many bites of just frosting.

Still a fun seasonal one, and I was glad to try it.

Strawberry. August 2019.

 "Vanilla cupcake with strawberry buttercream frosting."

Simple vanilla cake, well baked, consistent texture, good crumb.  Sweet, quite strawberry forward frosting.  Complimentary colored sprinkles.  I was impressed with just how fruity that got the frosting.

Nothing particular novel, nor negative with this cupcake.  If you like vanilla cake, and strawberry frosting, go for this, a well made cupcake.

Chocolate Chocolate / Coconut / Mocha. August 2019).

Mocha.
"Chocolate cupcake with coffee buttercream frosting."

From this box I tried what turned out to be the mocha cupcake.  When I grabbed it, I was hoping for salted caramel or something in that vein, so I was fairly surprised when I tasted it to find bitter coffee flavored frosting.

Once I re-set my expectations however, I did enjoy it - mocha is a good flavor, when you are prepared for it.  Not a flavor I go for often, but, if you like fairly intense coffee flavor, this delivers.

Chocolate Peanut Butter. (August 2019).

"Chocolate cupcake with peanut butter buttercream frosting."

Yes, someone got to this one before me, cutting it in half, but that didn't stop me from snatching up the other half as soon as I realized it was the peanut butter frosted one.  Mmm, peanut butter.

The cake base was good, standard chocolate cake, moist enough.  The frosting was certainly on the sweet side, ok, it was very sweet, but I could still taste enough peanut butter to make me happy.  The chocolate and peanut butter combo is a classic, and it worked as expected here.

This was probably my favorite of the SusieCakes cupcakes, because I'm such a sucker for peanut butter.

October 2019

"Dessert Up for Grabs!!!", read the email sent out to my office, at 4:30pm, on a looong Wednesday the day before Halloween.

Of course I went running, when I found out they were from SusieCakes!

Cakes, cookies, bars ...

This group clearly had a wonderful lineup, as this was what was left over AFTER their event.  Still so many great things to dig into.

And of course I did.

I found some new favorites, and highly, highly recommend the pumpkin items!

Seasonal Fall/Halloween Specials

SusieCakes always has seasonal specials, and the Halloween and fall season was no exception.  Spooky sugar cookies, trick-or-treat bars, apple crumble pie, and of course, pumpkin galore (pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin maple cupcakes, pumpkin spice latte layer cake, pumpkin pie), joined a Halloween Celebration cake in the standard seasonal lineup.

I got a chance to try many of these.

Halloween Celebration Cake. ($38.00 for 6", $52.00 for 9")

"Celebration cake baked with black jimmies and orange jimmies with orange buttercream in and out, celebration strokes with spookins border."

I've had mixed success with SusieCakes cakes before, but this one was basically in the success category.  It was the classic funfetti celebration cake, just, turned into a Halloween theme.

The cake base was moist, sweet, and had good buttermilk tang to it.  That tang makes such a difference.  It was studded with seasonal sprinkles rather than the standard funfetti ones, but they didn't really change the taste.

The frosting was orange in color, but didn't taste any different from the other colored buttercreams they use.  Extremely sweet.

Overall, this was a fine, sweet, classic, celebration cake.  My third favorite item though, as the others were actually just amazing.

8" Pumpkin Cheesecake. $39.99.

"Seasonal cheesecake with just the right amount of spice baked on our graham cracker crust, topped with sweetened sour cream and cinnamon."

I generally shutter at pumpkin spice items.  I like pumpkin pie, really do, but pumpkin spice can be so often over used.  A touch too much nutmeg, and ... it just tastes like soap to me.

So when this said "just the right amount of spice", right in the description, I rolled my eyes.  "Yeah, right, that means, too aggressively spiced .... ", I thought.  

I also often dislike cheesecake that is pumpkin, or chocolate, or anything rather than traditional (although I'm all about mix-ins and toppings).  Usually, for me, you get none of the goodness of cheesecake, and just wind up with an unnecessarily heavy item.  

So I took this small chunk, and wished I had taken more.  Because it was actually quite good.  

The crust, far better than average, as it had spice baked into it too, and almost was like a gingersnap, just, a soft one.  The ginger in here went great with the pumpkin spices in the cheesecake itself.  The crust was soft, and broke apart easily, but didn't crumble.  Well, huh.

The cheesecake was rich, thick, creamy, and ... yeah, not too aggressively spiced.  It had plenty of pumpkin pie spices, don't get me wrong, there was no doubt that this was spiced with all the traditional spices, but, they were balanced, and none dominated.  It was one of the best pumpkin cheesecakes I've ever had.

And the topping?  It sealed the deal for me.  Sweetened sour cream, with a touch of tang, and just really complex flavor.  

This delivered on every front, each layer was excellent, and together they created a far above average pumpkin cheesecake.  I really enjoyed this, and would gladly have it again.

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Pumpkin Bread Pudding. Large bowl, $34.

"Moist pumpkin cake in a spiced custard topped with cinnamon whipped cream."

Next I moved on the to pumpkin bread pudding, which, actually just looked like a pumpkin pie baked into a strange container.  I didn't realize it was a bread pudding until much later, which I think is a good thing, as I have certain preferences and expectations with bread pudding, and generally prefer a specific style (distinct chunks of bread, crispy top, moist inside, etc, etc).  This wasn't that at all.

I'll cut to the chase on this one.  It was quite tasty.

Definitely not what I think of as bread pudding, as there were no visible chunks, but rather, it was an extremely dense mass, that, once you dug into it, had pieces that were clearly denser (the soaked bread) and a touch lighter (the custard base).  It was clearly not just a pumpkin pie, and was a bread pudding, but, just this kind.  It was extremely moist, and, as I said, so very dense.  A little went a long way, which I realized a bit too late, as it did kinda sit like a log in my gut when I had far too much.

Much like the pumpkin cheesecake, it was spiced, but not too aggressively.  The pumpkin flavor was even strong in this, perhaps because not cut by the cheesecake.  

This one came with cinnamon whipped cream, fluffy whipped cream, that ... yeah, was NOT too spiced!  The cinnamon just accented it, and didn't overwhelm.  

This was another hit, quite different from the pumpkin cheesecake, and I think it falls in second place to the cheesecake, but just barely.  I'd gladly have it again too.

Bars

SusieCakes makes a large variety of bars, including classics like brownies and lemon squares, that I skipped with no hesitation, as bars are a category I rarely explore, as I'm not generally a big fan, and they fall lower on the list for me than cookies even.  But, when there were plenty of the more interesting ones left, what choice did I have but to try a few?

7-Layer Bar. $3.75.

"Baked with chocolate chips, coconut, & pecans on a graham cracker crust."

7 layer bars, (or 7 layer dips for that matter ...), can be fairly awesome.  Or they can be *nearly* awesome, but have that one layer you hate.  At least, that is how they seem to go for me.

So I approached this with hesitation, only cutting off a small chunk, because I didn't know what all 7 would be, and I didn't want to waste.

What were the 7 layers?  Graham cracker crust, coconut, pecans, chocolate chips, those were all mentioned in the description, and were pretty obvious.  But what about the other 3?  I spied butterscotch chips.  That makes 5 things, but I never found any others.  And really, it was only 2 layers: crust and the rest.

Anyway, this was kinda no different from a generic bake sale item.  Sweetened coconut, decent distribution of butterscotch chips and chocolate chips, proper size chunks of nuts.  Nothing particularly novel about them.  They made up the entire topping.

The base was extremely thick more than half the bar really.

Fruit Crumble Bar. $3.75.

"Blueberry filling baked on a shortbread crust topped with crumble. *Made without dairy & eggs.*"

I say I don't really care for bars, but, I do like fruit crumble in other forms, so this was an easy one to give a try.

The top was very generously covered in thick crumble, which, as it is often my favorite part, made me pretty excited.  It was .. fine?  Not really notable, no interesting flavor (e.g. brown sugar), nothing particularly distasteful about it, but not standout in any way.

Inside was the layer of blueberry filling, much like what you find inside a blueberry danish, rather than juicier and more full bodies like a blueberry pie, crisp, or crumble.  I was bored by it.

And at the base, the part I was most skeptical of, since it is where bars usually fail to impress, a shortbread cookie crust, which sounded far more promising than most.  However, I didn't get any shortbread cookie element from it, it just was thick, dry, and even more boring.

Overall, there was nothing wrong with this bar exactly, but it was just ... boring.

February 2020

Another day, another "come eat our leftover cake" email at my office.  This time was extremely dramatic ... more than half left each of 4 huge cakes: chocolate, celebration, red velvet, and carrot.  I skipped the celebration cake as I've never been a big fan, and the red velvet because I've had it before, and went just for the two that were new to me: chocolate and carrot.  One was a *serious* winner!

Carrot Cake.

"Baked with pecans & golden raisins, layered with our unique “praline filling” & topped with traditional cream cheese frosting."

This was a very, very, very good carrot cake.  Wow.  Every element was A+.

The carrot cake itself was moist, loaded with shredded carrot and raisins for moisture, loaded with pecans for crunch, and smothered in plenty of rich, sweet, kinda perfect cream cheese frosting.  There was tons of frosting, and that was NOT a bad thing.

And then ... what at first I was thrown off by because I hadn't read the description to understand, yes, layers of the praline filing, which was sweet, gooey, and delicious too.

This was unexpected in many ways, and, totally delicious.

OLD-FASHIONED 6-LAYER CHOCOLATE CAKE.

"'Towering high, moist chocolate cake filled and covered in rich, dark chocolate buttercream frosting."

This one wasn't a winner for me.  The cake wasn't particularly moist nor rich chocolatey, the frosting was a fine texture but again, not very special.  It was all "fine", but not exciting.

Update Review, January 2019

Sure, I've never been in love with SusieCakes cupcakes before (see my original review, or update review from 2016), but, I was actually *really* craving cupcakes one day, when ...

Cupcake Box!

I walked into a micro kitchen at my office and found an abandoned box of cupcakes, many of which had been cut into halves or quarters, meaning I could try several kinds!

Thank you, random person who brought in extra cupcakes.

Red Velvet.

"Deep red, moist cake lightly flavored with cocoa, topped with traditional cream cheese frosting."

I first went for the red velvet, dressed up a bit for the February holidays (even though it was only January!).

It was better than I remembered, a moist cake, although the flavor of the cake itself was fairly muted.  The cream cheese frosting was rich, creamy, and had good cream cheese flavor.

A very decent, standard red velvet cupcake.

Lemon.

"Vanilla cupcake with lemon buttercream frosting." 

I moved on to the yellow sprinkle topped one, which I worried might be lemon, and, indeed, was.  Boo, hiss.  I dislike lemon desserts.  Luckily, there was one of these cut up and that is what I went for, just a tiny chunk.  If it wasn't lemon, or I loved it, I could take the whole one, otherwise, leave it for someone who will appreciate!

The frosting was sweet lovely buttercream, but alas, very strongly lemon flavored.  If you like lemon desserts, this was probably great?

Seasonal Special: Banana Chocolate Chip.

"Banana cupcake baked with chocolate chips, frosted with cream cheese buttercream."

And finally, I went for one that I had no idea what it was.  It looked like it might have some kind of chocolate component, I could sorta see something darker in the cake, and it did have the chocolate sprinkles on top.   It turned out to be the seasonal special: banana chocolate chip.  Doh.  I can't say the idea of a banana cupcake excited me, except for the brief moment I thought, "hmm, can I save that for breakfast to have like banana bread?  It isn't like it has that much frosting on it, and the frosting is like cream cheese anyway ..."

So, uh, yeah, I saved it for morning, and pulled out alongside a cup of coffee - *after* I had a small bowl of cereal, I'm totally responsible!  The frosting was good, the same thick, rich, cream cheese frosting from the red velvet.  But the cake?  Sure it was moist, sure it was studded with regular size generic chocolate chips, but it was also ... banana.  I do not care for banana flavor.

Not the cupcake for me, but well made, and I liked the frosting.

Strawberry.

"Vanilla cupcake with strawberry buttercream frosting."

Finally, I went for the pink frosted one, not sure if it was the "vanilla pink" or the "strawberry", as both feature vanilla cake and pink buttercream.  I believe this was the vanilla pink, as it matches their photo of the vanilla pink, although the frosting just tasted like fluffy sweet buttercream, tasty in a very sweet way, but not strawberry.

The cake was fine, dense, vanilla cake.

I appreciate the generous amount of frosting SusieCakes uses, in particular, it tends to extend down into the cupcake a bit, as if quasi-stuffed.

Update Review, November 2016

I've encountered SusieCakes several times before.  I wasn't ever impressed with their basic cupcakes, but I did find their sugar cookies to be above average, and their fancy cakes had promise.  So I was happy to try more of their products when we had them for an event.

Election Day Assortment.

For election day, our office got voting themed cookies and cupcakes.  I was a bit disappointed by the assortment, since I don't ever really like cookies and  didn't like their cupcakes before, but I still eagerly dove in.

We had one type of cookie (iced sugar cookie) and 4 types of cupcakes: red velvet, chocolate, vanilla, and flourless chocolate.  The flourless chocolate turned out to be amazing.

Frosted Sugar Cookie.  $3.25.

"Thin, buttery and tender cookies with decorative royal icing."

The cookies were simple sugar cookies coated in icing, the same as I had before, just a different themed shape this time.  Sweet cookie, sweet icing, fairly classic.  Nothing earth shattering, but actually a pretty good sugar cookie.

Red Velvet Cupcake.

"Deep red, moist cake lightly flavored with cocoa, topped with traditional cream cheese frosting. "

The red velvet cupcake was, well, a standard red velvet cupcake.  Moist enough cake, although fairly plain tasting.  It had a slight red velvet tang from what I imagine was buttermilk, but it wasn't particularly strong.

The cream cheese frosting was great though, very cream-cheesy, and there was plenty of it.

Overall, a solid, but standard, cupcake, and since I'm not a big cupcake lover, it was just kinda ok.

Red Velvet (May 2017).

I had another red velvet a few months later, and was even less impressed.  There was no tang or interest to the cake (although, it was moist).  The frosting, while it tasted like cream cheese, also wasn't great.  Everything about this was highly mediocre.

The decorations, for Easter, were cute though.

Flourless Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Buttercream.

The flourless chocolate cupcake however was glorious.

The cake was a rich, dense, very chocolatey cake, more like a brownie than a moist cake, which makes sense, since it was flowerless.  The top was slightly crispy, just as I like.

The frosting was just sweet vanilla buttercream, but it complimented the rich cake very well.  And there was plenty of it.

Overall, a fantastic cupcake, and I'd gladly eat a dozen myself.

Update: We had plenty of these left over, so I ended up saving and freezing some.  I defrosted one in the fridge overnight, and it came out great.  The cake was still dense, chocolately, and fantastic.  The frosting though, just sweet.  Meh.  I actually removed most of it, and just enjoyed the cake, which is a bit miraculous, given that I only usually eat cake for 1) the frosting or 2) accompanying ice cream.  Which, actually, probably would have gone great.

Original Review, January 2015

SusieCakes is, you guessed it, a cake shop, or more accurately, a chain of cake shops, located throughout both Northern and Southern California.  They are known for their speciality and custom layer cakes, including "Susie's Famous Southern Red Velvet", but they also make cupcakes, cheesecake, puddings, pies, brownies, and cookies.  When you enter the shop, it is hard to look past the cakes though, as most are 4-6 layers, quite impressive looking.

The San Francisco location is located in the Marina, right on Chestnut Street.  Service is always fairly friendly, and they generally have a sample of one of their specialty cakes out on the counter, which I of course love.  The cakes I've tried have all been quite tasty, and I like their cookies, but the cupcakes I didn't like.

I'd love to return though to try their pudding, since I love puddings, and theirs come complete with whipped cream.  I also just saw whoopie pies on the menu, which always bring back nostalgia for me.  And, if I were ever ordering a full cake, I'd definitely consider SusieCakes, since, as I said, I've liked the cakes.

Cookies

Pumpkin Halloween Sugar Cookie.  $3.25.

"Thin buttery and tender cookies with decorative royal icing."

I'm not generally one to gravitate towards cookies, but a co-worker brought in assorted decorated cookies for Halloween, and they were too cute not to try.  Plus, look at at the icing!

It was a very classic sugar cookie.  Nice and soft, not hard and crisp like they sometimes can be.  There was shiny, sweet icing on top, a bit crunchy, but I liked that.  Sprinkles ... for fun and more sugar.

It was a cute shape, nicely decorated, and was quite tasty for such a simple cookie.  I'd eat another (and in fact, went back and had a ghost shaped one later, which was just as tasty).  I've seen adorable turkey cookies for Thanksgiving too, so they clearly have fun with seasonal shapes.

It was a large cookie, but $3.25 for such a basic cookie did seem steep, although I guess the decorating time is really what you pay for.

Cupcakes

Mini Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla Frosting.  $20/dozen.

Another day, someone brought in mini cupcakes from SusieCakes.  Again, not my favorite dessert item, but, how do I resist trying a dessert?

I love frosting, but there was just way too much of it on this cupcake.  It was just sweet, I didn't taste any vanilla, and didn't have a great mouthfeel.  It tasted like ... butter.  Just butter.  Ok, sweet butter.  The cake itself was somewhere in-between moist and dry, just kinda there.  It also didn't have any flavor.

I did not like this at all.

Mini Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting.  $20/dozen.

I was so disappointed by the vanilla, that I also tried the chocolate version.

It was better than the vanilla, but only slightly.  Again, the cake was somewhere in-between moist and dry, just kinda there, but at least it had decent chocolate flavor.  The frosting was also better, again it had a decent chocolate level, so there was something to it.

But overall, not a winner, and I wouldn't get again.

Cakes

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Tropical Coconut Cake. $6.25/slice.

“Vanilla cake layered with pineapple accented coconut filling & topped with fluffy coconut buttercream and shredded coconut”.

This was actually pretty good, and I bought a slice after trying the sample.  So enticing!

The cake was moist and fruity from the pineapple and coconut filling.  There was perhaps too much shredded coconut on top, so it somewhat overwhelmed.  The buttercream was also quite good, which makes me think that something may have just gone wrong with the batch I had on the vanilla cupcake?  I'm not sure how it could be so good on the cake, and so very bad on the cupcake.

The price for this was rather high though, $6.25 for a single slice.  Full sized round cakes are also available, $36 for 6", or $49 for 9", or you can go the sheet cake route, $215 for a full sheet, $110 for half, or $75 for a quarter.

Vanilla Celebration Cake. $49 / 9 inch round.

"6-layers of vanilla cake baked with colorful sugar confetti, filled & frosted with our signature retro-blue vanilla frosting."

To celebrate a co-worker's birthday, a co-worker brought in the aptly named "Celebration Cake".  It was a beautiful, 6 layer high creation, fairly stunning, particularly when sliced so you could see the confetti throughout the base cake.

The cake itself was just a vanilla cake, although studded with the pops of color.  It was just basic cake, not too dry, not too moist, not very exciting.  The frosting was a cool minty-blue color, so I thought it was flavored, but alas, it was just flavored sweet.  It was creamy, good enough frosting, but still, just plain sweet frosting.

This cake wasn't bad, but it was far more exciting looking than it tasted.  Festive, but boring.

Update August 2017: Another birthday, another celebration cake.  I felt exactly the same way about it.  The cake was ... fine, but boring.  Not too dry, but not interesting.  And the frosting looked far better than it was, it was just sweet, sweet, sweet.

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SEASONAL SPECIALTY CAKE: Berry Vanilla.

"Four layers of our vanilla cake with a light vanilla pudding, fresh strawberries & blueberries topped with whipped cream."

This was ... fine.  I liked the ideas behind it, but the fruit itself wasn't particularly flavorful, juicy, or ripe, and the whipped cream and pudding were unremarkable ... as was the plain vanilla cake.

Overall, everything was made well, moist cake, etc, but, it didn't add up to anything special.