Mike's Amazing Cakes

Mike can do--- as his business name implies-- amazing things with cake. You may have seen some of his work on The Food Network. Anything you can imagine, he can create. My one bridezilla aspect to wedding planning was that our cake look EXACTLY like the inspiration picture we found. (No point getting into it, but I did have my reasons, promise!) Anyway, Mike put my fears of having a "cake wreck" to rest-- he delivered exactly as we were promised. The cake was gorgeous and looked exactly like the inspiration cake. And while their cake isn't as tasty as Madison Park Bakery's, it was still incredible. We had chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling and lemon with marionberry filling. The lemon & marionberry was good, but the chocolate was great! One last thing-- we found that Mike's was willing to work with us to make our dream cake work within our budget, and that's more than I can say with many vendors. After their estimate came back as too high for us, they worked with us to adjust our order (less presentation cake, more sheet cake in the back) until it worked for us. If you're considering them, be sure to set aside a weekend morning to attend their cake buffets-- they've got some great cake and it's fun to stuff yourself silly with trying all the flavors (chocolate with bailey's filling anyone?).

The cake flavors Mike and his crew offer are delicious, for sure. But, the design process and their office staff seriously lacked creativity and professionalism. Our paperwork was lost twice and the staff was slow to respond to questions. Regarding the design, as everyone knows, Mike and his assistants make fantastic show pieces for TV and he has quite an extensive portfolio. We knew the feeling we wanted to evoke for our cake and the style that we loved - we just needed a more budget friendly version. The office staff was helpful during our office visit to make design choices that would help us save money - for instance, the gold details we wanted on the cake was chosen to be on the pearls covering the seams between layers, since they are a "free" detail anyway. But, there was never any help in realizing our elegant look. We ended up with a nice, FLAT looking cake... with no drama or refinement. In comparison to the rest of the wedding, it was a huge disappointment.

Also, when the cake was delivered it had sunk about 1/4 inch and the support dowel in the center of the cake was popping out the top - which destroyed our initial on the top of the cake. So, the drivers had to take the cake back to the studio for it to be repaired. When it returned - thankfully before dinner - the initial on the top was sloppy looking.

All this was further compared to a brilliant cake Mike's Amazing Cakes made for my father's 80th birthday party that we picked up the day after the wedding. His cake was a stack of books, complete with gold leafed "pages" and a figurine of my father, in his shorts and Hawaiian shirt, perched on the edge of the cake, playing the oboe.