Butter&

Mmm, cake.  I went through a short phase of not being very into cake, but those days are behind me.  A turning point for me was once I discovered how much I love warm cake and ice cream - no, I don't mean molten chocolate cake or butter cake or others that are always served warm, I mean regular cake, with buttercream, that I just warm up in the toaster oven a bit, and serve a la mode.  The frosting does of course melt, but it becomes a lovely sauce (or, just remove it, and put it back on at the end).  I don't think I ever had just normal cake, warmed up, until 2020 or so.  I "discovered" this trick when I had surplus few day old cake, and thought, "hey, warming things up or serving a la mode does wonders on day old baked goods, maybe it will work for cake too?"  And, yes, yes it did.  (Side note: Carrot cake in particular I can't imagine having any other way.  Warm carrot cake, topped with a scoop of vanilla bean or caramel swirl or cream cheese ice cream ... soo good!).  But anyway.  I am back to being a full time cake eater, and have it usually at least once or twice a week (sometimes warm, sometimes not) as part of my dessert lineup.

This is a lot of preamble to introduce you to a cake shop that was new to me: Butter&.  They are based in  San Francisco, and are very well regarded.  As in, 5 perfect stars on Yelp, with lots of reviews.  When does *that* happen?  I've been aware of the bakery for a while, but hadn't yet tried them myself until now.

"Butter& is a designer cake shop serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 2017. We're on a mission to make great design more accessible and to be the best employer in the food industry. Our designers specialize in a modern, minimalist, and precise design. We love clean lines and balance, and we're on a mission to make great design more accessible."

A designer cake shop!  I didn't even know that term before looking them up to do this review.  From what I see, they make very elegant cakes, not over the top custom cakes.  They make cakes in basically all sizes ranging from mini 2 servings to wedding cakes to serve 100. They can do single tier, two tier, three tier, etc.  Along with making cakes that look amazing, they also focus on less sweet flavors, and use a unique frosting.

"The frosting we use is a creamy Greek yogurt buttercream. Our cakes are much less sweet than others because our recipe uses a lot less sugar than other buttercreams, especially those typical in American desserts like American buttercream. That allows our cakes to be much more flavor-driven."

They offer 5 main flavors, and they aren't your standard vanilla, chocolate, and funfetti.  Not even red velvet or carrot.  Nope, these are actually interesting, well designed flavors.  The most interesting to me are the a strawberries + cream or brown butter + meyer lemon.  They do have a double chocolate option for the chocolate lovers (85% Guittard of course for the chocolate ganache), and a hazelnut + chocolate option that goes far beyond the standard Nutella-vibes, instead it has a hazelnut praline and chocolate ganache buttercream.  The cakes all use a light brown sugar cake rather than basic vanilla/plain (besides the double chocolate and cookies + cream, that have chocolate cake base).  Each cake has a backstory, and the menu includes all the details on the inspiration, which I love.

I didn't select a cake, but rather stumbled upon the last slice of a cake that a co-worker ordered for a celebration.  When I saw the box was from Butter&, I gleefully dug in.

Cookies & Cream.

"High quality, ethically sourced vanilla beans  infused into our buttercream with crushed Oreo cookies folded in and paired with fluffy chocolate cake."

Backstory: Whether you’re at the ice cream shop or dipping in milk, this one is pure nostalgia. We use Heilala Vanilla, a world-renowned humanitarian vanilla brand, sourced from the Kingdom of Tonga in Polynesia. Heilala Vanilla paste is made from organically grown bourbon vanilla beans, and using real vanilla beans in this recipe makes the vanilla flavor much more expressive than the vanilla extract many of us are used to. Oreo cookies are crushed and folded into the buttercream before being layered with fluffy chocolate cake.

So, cookies & cream is never the flavor of cake that I'd pick or order.  I grew up in a household with a father who adored Oreos, and that just never carried over to me.  I kinda actively dislike them.  But when there was one slice left of the cake, I couldn't resist, even if it was cookies & cream.

The first thing I noticed was the buttercream. It was soo creamy and light, and ... slightly tangy!  Sweet but not standard cake cloying sweet.  I was drawn in instantly.  This was fascinating cake.  I hadn't read the details about how they use Greek yogurt as the base, so I didn't know to expect this style, but I loved it.  The Oreos crushed in added some texture, but, given that I don't care for them really, of course I wished they weren't there.  That base buttercream though, just so good.

The cake was moist, light, and decently chocolately.  Again, not a super sugar laden American style, but, sweet enough.  Consistently baked.

Put together, this was an enjoyable cake, well executed, and nice to have something a bit less reliant on sugar to make it taste good.  I'd love to try their other flavors, as again, cookies & cream isn't really my thing.  ***+.