A lot of restaurants are all bark and no bite. They are full of too much hype and not enough flavor. From food trucks to hole in the walls to 5 star establishments, I'm here to answer the question on everyone's mind, "Is it really that good!" I am not an Iron Chef let alone a line cook. I'm just an ordinary girl who loves to eat extraordinary food.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Susie's Cakes - "Like a fat kid loves cake!"

It’s been about 2 ½ years since I’ve eaten anything from Susie’s Cakes. From what I remember I really liked it. But since then, there have been so many other bakeries opening up much closer in the area that I haven’t had the chance to go back. What really pushed me to go back was to try a couple of their items of the month. So one night, we made a mad dash to Susie’s Cakes to pick up a few things. We got 2 red velvet cupcakes, a chocolate/chocolate cupcake, vanilla/vanilla cupcake, a chocolate mint cupcake and their flavor of the month, pineapple upside down cupcake. Another  item of the month we picked up was the white chocolate banana cream pie.


I was very excited to try the pineapple upside down cupcake since that is one of my favorite cakes. The brown sugar coating with the sweet pineapple is heavenly so I couldn’t wait to try it. This was a pineapple cake with brown sugar buttercream topped with a cherry. I loved the frosting. It may be too sweet for those who are not really dessert people or those who can only eat it in little quantities. You can really taste the brown sugar, it tasted like caramel. The pineapple cake, however, wasn’t good. It had chunks of pineapple throughout the batter but you couldn’t really taste it. It was a little heavy and almost seemed like it wasn’t cooked all the way through. It could be from the juice of the pineapples. I would’ve liked it had it been a more traditional pineapple upside down cake with maybe the pineapple not being in the cake but rather topped on the frosting.

The next cupcake I ate was the red velvet. This cupcake is the real deal. It wasn’t a chocolate cupcake disguised with red food coloring. The chocolate wasn’t overpowering. There was just a hint of it. The frosting was also good. It wasn’t too sweet. You can still taste the cream cheese but it wasn’t tart. When you take a  bite of cake with frosting, it’s everything a red velvet cupcake should be. The texture was dense yet fluffy. This is by far one of, if not the best, red velvet cupcakes I’ve eaten.

I then moved on to the vanilla cupcake. The texture of the cake was more of a pound cake, but not the pound cake you find in the frozen aisle. It was moist and dense. It wasn’t too sweet which was a good thing because the frosting is sweet, but it was good enough that you could eat it without the frosting.  I didn’t try the chocolate/chocolate or the mint chocolate cupcakes. From seeing the kids devour them, I’m sure they were to their liking.

The other item of the month was their white chocolate banana cream pie. I wouldn't have noticed that it had white chocolate in it if it wasn't for the white chocolate shavings on top and the bits i got while I chewed parts of the pie. White chocolate has such a subtle taste that it needs to be the star of the food in order to really taste and appreciate it. In this pie, you could not really taste it.  However, the crust was buttery and flaky, soft yet crumbly, almost like a shortbread cookie. If this was just sold as a banana cream pie, I would consider it a well made pie. But because they call it a white chocolate banana cream pie and the flavor of white chocolate wasn't prominent, I was a bit disappointed because white chocolate is my favorite of all chocolates. 

Although I was disappointed with their items of the month, I would really recommend Susie’s Cakes to get your staple cupcakes. Another item that I did not get this time around was a slice of their marble cake. I got this for my baby shower a couple years back and it was definitely a hit. All my guests raved about how good it was. They do have other goodies such as cookies, regular cakes, bars, etc. For 8 cupcakes and a mini pie my total was around $33. I went to the Susie’s Cakes in Newport Beach but I know they have locations in Calabasas, Manhattan Beach, Brentwood and also one in the Bay area. Susie’s Cakes is definitely one of the best bakeries out there.

2 comments:

  1. I totally agree when items have ingredient name son them and then don't really showcase those ingredients. Just stick with one thing and make it a rocking flavor. And it's true that white chocolate is just so subtle it needs all the attention it can get! Love reading you, can't wait for more!

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  2. Aww, thank you so much for the comment. I agree, you have to make the flavor rock if you are going to twist and recreate the flavors of a classic.

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