Three Phoenix Bakeries Compared| Let Us Eat Cake!

Every birthday or special event that rolls around, I always stress about where to buy the cake. I haven’t found any true bakeries close to my house in North Scottsdale. All of the fabulous cupcake places closed down and frozen yogurt shops opened up in their place (I like the yogurt shops, but really, why are there so many of them?). Anyway, back to cake – I decided that I would invite our friends over for a fun, sugar-filled Fourth of July party and we would have a cake tasting . . . this truly was the best research I have done for any blog to date.

 Here are the three cakes/cupcakes that we ate:

Costco Cupcakes and cakes are sort of the standard for our group of friend’s birthday parties, so I had to pick them so we could have a baseline comparison. If you have not seen their cupcakes, they are big, like everything else at Costco. We cut the cupcakes into halves or even quarters for the smaller kids to share – they really are that big. The cupcakes are pretty good for a kid’s birthday party event and the kids would certainly be happy to have a cupcake the size of their head.

I have heard all these wonderful things about the bakery at the Fry’s Market Place located at Tatum and Shea. Have you been to this grocery store yet? Even my five-year old twins said, “Wow, this place is amazing!” And it truly is. They have a wine bar, a sushi restaurant, valet service, cooking classes, a smoothie bar, and more I am forgetting. Obviously, it really is so much more than a grocery store, so I was excited to try their cakes. I ordered a 10-inch round, double layer chocolate cake with white whipped cream icing. The cake was decorated perfect for a Fourth of July BBQ. But the taste was the same as any other grocery store cake I have had. I didn’t get any of that extra pizazz I had expected from the hype I have heard. It would be fine for a kid’s birthday party, and they do have additional choices in flavors and decorations for cupcakes that I have not seen at any other standard grocery store.

For my third choice, I searched online for customer reviews to find the best bakery in the Valley, and I chose a little place called Karsh’s Bakery. Karsh’s is a Jewish bakery that has been around for about 50 years, located at 7th Street and Missouri in a little grocery store strip mall. I ordered a seven-inch, seven layer lemon Bavarian crème cake. This cake was truly excellent, and even at seven inches, this cake is rich enough that small slices are perfect to feed lots of people. We could tell that the ingredients used were high quality and I can fully testify that this cake tasted equally as good the next day . . . and the day after. I can’t wait to try Karsh’s other cakes, like their double fudge, chocolate mousse, and carrot cakes. It is probably a good thing that this bakery is not in my neighborhood or I would have to spend a lot more time burning a lot more calories at the gym.

So did I miss a great Phoenix bakery in my search? Where do you get your birthday cakes or cupcakes from?

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Angela has loved living in Scottsdale for the last 10 years with her husband, Tom, plus a dog Eddie. They have twin five-year old daughters and a two-year old daughter who has never had her name spelled correctly on her birthday cake. She currently serves on the Board of Paradise Valley Mothers of Multiples (or PVMOM), a local not-for-profit multiples club. She also likes to read lots of books, is a big college football fan (Go Big Red and Sun Devils!), tries to keep up on scrapbooking, is training for a half marathon in this brutal heat, attempts to garden, and loves reality TV. Contact Angela at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @angelabarako