Our extended family is hitting Disney World in October and will be celebrating 4 birthdays while we are there. I am not going to try to bake, but want to order some cake(s) while we're there. The people on the Disney boards rave about Publix, but obviously they are not "cake people." 
Are they actually decent grocery store cakes? (I did live in FL in college and know that Publix makes a helluva sub sandwich, but I have not had their cake.)
They offer mini wedding cakes (6" single layer with cupcake on top) so I was thinking about getting 4 varieties of those, although I'm not sure it will give us the leftovers our sweet-toothed family requires. 
Or, I'd be interested in finding a local baker to do it, but was not sure if I'm allowed to solicit for one on here... if anyone is in the Orlando area feel free to PM me!
I am from Miami, and Publix cakes are very popular. Their cakes are frozen, not bake in their bakery, they do all the decoratations though. The reason they are so popular is because of the buttercream, it is fluffy and light and not too sweet. for years I try to get the recipe and finally found out they use a pre-mix base from probably the same company they buy the pre-package frozen cakes from. I understand from my inquiries that they add heavy cream and syrup to it early in the morning before they start decorating the cakes. They also sell the buttercream if you want to buy it at about $5.00 per pound.
Lomikesa
I have lived in FL for 31 years and for about 28 of those years always went to Publix for cakes for special occasions. They are simply the best for a supermarket cake. Here is a link to their array of bakery cakes:
http://www.publix.com/food/catalog/Bakery/DecoratedCakes/Home.do
You can call and order them, I would not hesitate to use them for your birthday celebrations.
BTW, October is a great time to go to Disney, in fact, it is my favorite month, much cooler, fewer people. If you have not investigated it, Mickey's Not So Very Scary Halloween Party is a great evening. It is an additional ticket, but well worth it, if you have small children and like Halloween. Because it is a ticketed event, their goal is for wait lines to be no longer than 10 minutes, so it is a great way to get around the Magic Kingdom and the evening is "magical" I am green with envy..
HTH 
I absolutely love Publix cakes, I'd chose them over Sam's & Costco's. Their icing is super delicious and their cake is always fluffy (even though its previously frozen).
I drive an hour to get Publix ALL the time 
YUMMY
Publix cakes are the only supermarket cakes I really like and their icing is the best! I love their sandwiches too, BTW!
Lomikesa-I didn't know you could buy the icing from them, thanks for the tip!
I used to be a decorator at a Publix and I still love their cakes!
One thing, the, mini wedding cakes are expensive! They were $70 each back when I worked as a decorator and things have gone up in price a lot since I left.
Yes, their cakes come in frozen, but they go straight from the oven to the flash-freezer at the bakery where they are made, so they are still very moist and yummy.
The icing is made in-store using a proprietary base-mix supplied by Brill. They add real butter to it and then whip it up with simple syrup to make it extra fluffy. It is the BEST grocery-store icing I have ever had.
If you like fruit fillings, the lemon filling and the raspberry filling are both very good!
If the store where you order the cakes carries the Marsala Nut Torte, I highly recommend it!
HTH!
Am I the only one? I loathe Publix cakes! Their icing is just plain shortening with powdered sugar....ICK! If you love that tongue coated feel of that type of icing, then I guess it's fine.
You are not alone! I absolutely can not eat it or any cake from a grocery store. I never had them growing up and I guess that makes me a cake snob! I just can't help it. For the record though, everyone I know would choose Publix over and other store.
I live in Florida-and before I started making cakes myself, Publix cake is all my family ever ordered. Never had a bad one. They are so moist. I always ordered vanilla with a fresh strawberry filling. Yum!
Vanilla with Strawberry filling was my favorite too!
Am I the only one? I loathe Publix cakes! Their icing is just plain shortening with powdered sugar....ICK! If you love that tongue coated feel of that type of icing, then I guess it's fine.
Um. As a former Publix decorator I can assure you that their icing is NOT just shortening + powdered sugar. In fact, it contains egg whites, quite a LOT of real butter, and real vanilla, and is whipped by the decorators in small batches with simple syrup to a company standard weight per volume.
When my good friend and fellow cake decorator retired from the bakery here in NY years ago he and his wife moved to Florida. He discovered he had way too much time on his hands and took a part time job as a decorator at Publix. Everytime we talked he told me that he wished that I could taste and work with their icing. He was so excited about it...always said it was the best he had ever tasted and worked with. He was very proud of the product that they sold there.
When my good friend and fellow cake decorator retired from the bakery here in NY years ago he and his wife moved to Florida. He discovered he had way too much time on his hands and took a part time job as a decorator at Publix. Everytime we talked he told me that he wished that I could taste and work with their icing. He was so excited about it...always said it was the best he had ever tasted and worked with. He was very proud of the product that they sold there.
Wow, what an endorsement...that's kinda cool, I think 
.
I used to be a decorator at a Publix and I still love their cakes!
One thing, the, mini wedding cakes are expensive! They were $70 each back when I worked as a decorator and things have gone up in price a lot since I left.
Yes, their cakes come in frozen, but they go straight from the oven to the flash-freezer at the bakery where they are made, so they are still very moist and yummy.
The icing is made in-store using a proprietary base-mix supplied by Brill. They add real butter to it and then whip it up with simple syrup to make it extra fluffy. It is the BEST grocery-store icing I have ever had.
If you like fruit fillings, the lemon filling and the raspberry filling are both very good!
If the store where you order the cakes carries the Marsala Nut Torte, I highly recommend it!
HTH!
Hello Prterrel,
What kind of simple syrup did they use?
Lomikesa
My daughter got married at The Bahama Bay on Lake Davenport - we live in the UK- so we had to get a cake when we got there. We went to the local Publix, spoke to the bakery manager who was really nice considerring that we were giving them 5 days notice. and we ordered a two tier cake. She wanted a chocolate/vanilla marble cake with vanilla filling, and a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling.
When we went to pick up the cake, it was beautifully decorated with gorgeous buttercream roses and they packed it up and wheeled it to the car on a trolley, and we put it straight into the hotel fridge. It was a great service and a very nice cake. It cost $150 and served 50 guests although there wasn't that many of us so we had huge slices.
This is the cake she had but it was two tier and we'd brought our own topper.
I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to say the other day I was in Publix and wanted a piece of cake so I tried their white cake with buttercream icing since they sell just one piece of cake at a time. My husband is diabetic so I have not been baking lately and just was craving a piece of cake. Well, it tasted terrible!!! I have not tried their cake since my son was about 4 years old. He is now 27 years old. The cake was dry and the icing was not as I remember it to be. The scratch made cakes that I have cooked are always so moist. Boy, what a difference there was in this store bought cake verses cakes made from scratch.
I could tell that they had just taken all of the individual pieces of cake out of a refrigerator!!! It could have been that this piece of cake along with the other pieces had been sitting for more days than it should have and that is why it was so dry!!! I ended up throwing most of it to the birds to eat!!! I used to love the white cake that Publix sold years ago. Maybe if you order a cake freshly done it would taste fresher and better!!! I do not think I will be buying Publix cake again!!!!
It's so funny to me when one of these old threads pops up and I'm on it...I get to re-live what I thought at a particular moment in time...
Mostly I cringe, but anyway...
I've lost my love for Publix cakes...it just doesn't "float my boat" like it used to...in fact, for my b'day this year, I made my cake, which is a first.
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