I can't believe what I just tasted...

A coworker of mine just bought a dozen cupcakes for us, from a near-by bakery. This bakery used to have WONDERFUL cakes when I was about 6 years old. But they've changed owners, and apparently, recipes. Last time I bought a cake from there was in 2000, and it was so disgusting, we threw it away.

These cupcakes were supposedly just baked this morning.

They were HARD. DRY. Stale-tasting. For $1.75 a piece? The person who bought them threw the rest in the trash. They were unedible. I'm not a picky eater, either! They were supposed to be chocolate, judging by the color, but I tasted NO chocolate whatsoever. Bland.


Does anyone else have a similar problem with some of the more 'high-end' bakeries in their town? I feel like I should very kindly tell them, but I don't know if I should go through with it.

I just don't get how a bakery can go from having GREAT cakes to HORRIBLE cakes!!

And...why did the cake itself taste SOUR? Ewww...

Having just moved to Indpls a few years ago, I wasn't too familiar with who was good and who wasn't. So co-workers kept telling me about "THE" bakery who was "the best!" They ordered a birthday cake from there for my birthday. This bakery advertised that weddings cakes are never frozen, always fresh. Ok, maybe their wedding cakes are not frozen, but my supv had to take my birthday cake back because it was so frozen we couldn't even cut it! They almost had to send to one of their other stores to find a non-frozen cake. Supv made them cut the cake in the store to prove to her it wasn't frozen.

She gets back with the cake and I can see the condensation forming on top, so I know it's been frozen, too. No big deal to me, but it's just the point of their big "...not frozen!" advertising thing that bugs me about it. I get a piece of cake and everyone is waiting for my reaction.

"Yep," I said. "That's a bakery cake alright."

Nothing special. It tasted exactly like every other bakery cake I'd ever tasted.... which translates into "not as good as mine!"

I actually did have a similar experience. There's this bakery that is suppose to make these "amazing" brownies, and when someone bought a box and brought them in I couldn't believe how gross they were. They were gritty and bitter, and they were $2.50 each. What a rip off. I had one bite and threw out the rest. My brother who LOVES sweets and isn't too picky spit his out. I think people try to take the cheap way out and use less than great quality indregients.

Ughhh...it drives me crazy!

There is another place here who is so well-known for their cookies.

Well, let me be honest: their cookies are crap!

The disgusting oatmeal cookies I bought: $1.50 each, and they are RAW in the middle. The employees are rude, and someone I know got a wedding cake from there, and said that the guests wouldn't eat it, that it was so dry. And I HEARD (don't know if this is true or not...) that they use Wilton Fondant on their cakes. Um, gross.



Maybe all of these other people have never tasted a good cake before?

oneprimalscream, I hear ya on the cookies, too! Daughter and I were in the mall this week and I checked out one of those mall-cookie stores. Omg, how terrible! Their prices for snickerdoodles and sugar cookies were $1.45 each. (17.40/dozen!). I bought 3 of the smaller M&M cookies (3 for 99 cents), took one bite and threw the cookie back in the bag, told my daughter she could have it.

If I could afford mall rent.......!

It's true... these people who are telling you how good these places are... they don't know what good is!! They've never had the real deal!! We have to help them out!

There is a bakery across te river from me that everyone raves about... my Mom, the woman who got me into making cakes, even thinks their cinnamon rolls are amazing. I tasted something from them recently and was shocked by how bad it was! My mom was embarrassed, she said apparently it was just the cinnamon rolls that are good!

I do the menus and stuff for a local restaurant that just hired a cake artist. She has beautiful cakes! I hope they taste as good as they look...because my friend's neighbor is getting her wedding cake from her!

Yes, these bakeries can make something that looks good, but it doesn't taste good. And you would think that they'd want a cake that people would actually eat...especially after paying all that money for it!

On another note, a local restaurant-owner is opening another one...and he heard about me from my coworker, who happens to be a good friend of him. He is going to call me soon to discuss what items I could make for him! Hopefully, then...some people can taste what good, moist cake tastes like!

Oooooh good luck! That is exciting!

Yah I remember when my sister got married she bought her cake from this italian bakery that was suppose to be the best. Well it was melted looking and looked like a topsy turvey cake but it was before they were even invented!! She paid so much money for that cake and it looked horrible and tasted horrible!
My mother in law couldnt understand why I wanted to make my own wedding cake for mine. I went with a woman that was really inexperienced and when I told her I wanted flowers on my cake she thought it was a new fangled idea!! Well, I kick myself every day for not doing it myself. She put cinnamin in a white cake that had raspberry filling. And not just a pinch, but a LOT of cinnamin! Gross! I ended up throwing out my 1st anniversary cake instead of eating it!

Wow... and people pay big $$ for that nasty stuff and fuss about OUR pricing??

I had that experience last year, at a bakery in NYC. This bakery has been featured on a few Food Network shows. The cupcakes were supposed to have been baked and frosted in the morning. The clerk obviously forgot to mention which morning within the past few days. I was totally disappointed, and paid $3.00 each for a plain, iced cupcake. The chocolate cupcake was hard as rock on the edges, and very dry inside. The icing was crusted so hard it actually snapped when I bit into it. The yellow cupcake faired no better. Although it was not as dry, it had no vanilla taste to it - it was like eating coarse white bread.

On a better note, I am so glad Cupcake Cafe moved around the corner from the bus station. It's going to be my regular stop from now on. Their stuff is fabulous.

Theresa

some people think -- its home made... its cheaper then store bought---- Not....

Thanks, Melvira!

Maybe those of us who have had the hard/dry/yucky cupcake problem could find a use for them! They can replace our scrubbies!

IMO....in the far years past, bakers who truly loved baking and put their heart and soul into their product, opened a little shop and had dedicated customers who loved everything they purchased. Now, we have so many laws governing the space, the products used, the pay scale and benefits for the employees, regulations, rent and equipment costs.... I think it kills the enthusiasm of the true baker and the bakeries are all being taken over by the professional business person who is only interested in turning a profit. They cut cost any way they can; ingredients, handling time, packaging, dedicated employees. and many other factors. I know because I have worked for both situations.

I'm with Melvira - wing 'em at the dogs. I'd use them for scrubbies, oneprimalscream (great name btw), but my pots are expensive and I'm not gonna scratch them!!

There's an offender here, too... but I think their problem is branching out into things they know not of. If you want some astonishing artisan bread, by all means this is your place. Brownies (or alleged brownies)? Not so much.

Edited because I'm an idiot and can't work emoticons properly.

Yep. Happened to me last year. Where I used to go get my hair done, there was a woman that always came around selling slices of cake. (seems you can only get away with this stuff at a beauty shop lol) The first time I saw her I didn't get any...well, I'm a self-professed cake snob and that's OK.

They raved and raved about her cakes and how good they were.

So the next time I was there and saw her, I decided to try her caramel cake. Paid $3 for the slice. I put a piece in my mouth..

and it sat on my tongue for a few seconds. I could not believe how DRY that cake was!!! One of the beauticians there was saying how she likes to warm hers up, well yeah...so some of the dryness goes away. You shouldn't have to do that! Who wants hot, dry cake? It's supposed to be a yummy dessert in your mouth, not a desert.

I threw that mess away and was so disappointed. The only thing pretty tasty was the caramel icing. I really hope that was just a fluke or something because if that is how they always are, I can't believe people were raving about that.

Before I tasted it, we talked a little about cakes and I told her I decorated. She mentioned how she was going to get in touch with me because she has people who want their cakes decorated but she doesn't decorate and she was looking for someone to do them.

No thanks.

I also live near a bakery that people just rave about. The bakery sells cupcakes in there store which are tasty but not amazing.

The local bakery is *the* place to order from around here. If you don't have their cake at your child's birthday party, you risk not having anyone eat your cake. (direct quote from a party "I always look to see if the cake is from XXX. If it's not, I pass on eating any.")

However, what the general public does not know is that their cake orders are not made in house! They contract the orders out for baking and general icing and then decorate them in the bakery.

Even though the ordered cakes taste AWFUL I have never heard anyone mention it!

Yea, there are DEFINITELY a lot of those around here. For our wedding MIL, SIL, half of the staff at work, this person, that person, etc. etc. said I HAD to use a particular baker for our wedding cake... SO, because of politics I sucked it up and used her. Not only was the cake delivered the wrong flavor, I could see hands prints in the icing ("Faux Fondant" that I was talked into that would look "just like real fondant" -- yea, I was an idiot at the time), topper was sinking into the cake (one support for a wilton topper), top layer was tiered instead of stacked, but the taste, it just wasn't there with the pound cake that was delivered. Everyone who swore up and down that "You have to use " did not believe for a second that she is who we had make our photo cake. I also kick myself DEARLY for not making my own centerpiece photo cake!! We had another bakery do table centerpiece cakes for us, they did a fantastic job on the cakes especially for the price we paid. We had to use two bakers because one wouldn't do what the other would and vice versa.

There are a lot of bakeries around here that are the way the PP have described as well. They have one thing that is really really good, the rest, for the birds. There's one bakery near here, AWESOME on the donuts, HORRID on the cake especially their bitter frosting. How can white frosting be THAT bitter???? It also bugs me when places push the "gourmet" but the taste is such that you wonder if they ever tasted their product or just how far their taste buds are off..

It is so sad. There's a coffeeshop here that I heard had AMAZING gourmet desserts. Well, I went there one day to get a coffee and a brownie, and the brownie was decent, but nothing more than that. After that, all I ever ordered were coffee or tea drinks.

Until yesterday, my coworker brought me this WONDERFUL dessert bar, which was like a brownie with pecan-pie topping. It was delicious!

There is another deli here that I had never tried their desserts before (they are on special order for party trays and whatnot) but recently, we had them cater to our work for a big meeting we had with a client, and they had the most AMAZING cream puffs I've ever had. We were all fighting for the last one

So, if anyone ever frequents the Fresno or Visalia area, I can give you a few tips on what to order and what not to order (in my opinion) from certain places around here.

All of us should start some little business, and open franchises in every state, and our mission shall be to deliver GOOD cakes to people, because obviously, there really ARE people out there who have never tasted a GOOD cake!!!

I wish we could go and fine bakers that try to pass off lousy product and make them sit down and eat it themselves, and charge them ridulousy fines to see how it feels. If you are good at something, great stick to that don't try to make something you can't. leave that to the experts.

sorry had to vent.

Although it isn't really the bakery .... it's the people who buy it and think it's good or just have a personal preference for it. We'll never overcome some people's preference.

Example: When I was a teenager, my sister told me about this great little shop she'd found that had the BEST chocolate sundaes. So I checked it out. I couldn't find the ice cream under the cups and cups of syrup in the dish! Omg, how horrible! I went home and she asked me if I tried it.

I said, 'Yes, I stopped in and had a sundae ..... it was all syrup!"

She said, 'Yeah! Wasn't it great!!"

Her taste hasn't changed much over the years either! When she recommends a restaurant, I usually steer clear of it!

It's true... some people have horrendous taste! Case in point... my sister's BF thought that the box of Kraft spaghetti... the one with the little can of tomato paste that they tried to call sauce... he thought that was really good spaghetti. He wouldn't even try mine with all the fresh herbs, veggies, meat, etc. WTF??? It's what he grew up with, so that's what he knew as spaghetti. Poor beast. She just had to break up with him after that. I couldn't allow that unholy union any longer!

I have a friend like that, recommended a couple "good" places, you should have heard her going on about them. Tried two she recommended, will never go back to either. Plain, boring food. One was a buffett, should have known they wouldn't be anything spectacular. Then I made some food and brought it in. "OMG, Monica can cook her pants off!" She will tell any and everyone that will listen. I brought in my practice cakes, too. She thinks I should open a restaurant with a bakery.
And poor DH...he's so confused...he thought Hollandaise sauce only came from a packet, among other things. Was surprised when I pulled out a double boiler. What are you doing with that?

Melvira, cough cough, I started choking! That's too funny! I have nieces and nephews who all say, " You all eat weird stuff!" I say, "No, we eat real food!" Real food is Vegetables, fruits, salads (w/veggies AND fruit in them), steak, pork chops, clams, steak, roasted chicken etc. etc. They eat nuggets, box mac N cheese--My heart hurts...

Sorry Lynda-bob! Didn't mean to choke you there!! But I have to assume it was a good choke! hehehe! And Monica, too funny!! My DH's family is always amazed by my cooking, (I really am a great cook) but I have to laugh and say, "Yes, I use a little something I like to call seasonings!" It's funny how no matter what they make, it tastes like it just came out of a can. Even if they made it home made, it still has that fake tinnish taste. *shudder*