Cakes, Cupcakes, Doughnuts, and ALL the Sweets

It’s Week 2 of my competitive set analysis!

If you haven’t read my first post or my mid week check in, you can do so here:

So far, it has been super interesting! Each bakery really specializes in a specific little niche and tries its best to hit a home run in that area. Some capitalize on cupcakes, some on bundt cakes, some on special occasion cakes, etc…

Also, the customer service on some of them isn’t the greatest either…. Bakery A in particular doesn’t appear particularly pleased to be emailing me.

This week, I analyzed how many cake flavors, frosting flavors, and fondant options each had available, delivery pricing and how far they are willing to drive in order to deliver, alternative options (gluten free, cupcake displays, etc…), pricing, and style and design options. VERY IMPORTANT factors in my book!

Here are the results from last week:

1st Place – Bakery D
2nd Place – Bakery B
3rd Place – Bakery E
4th Place – Bakery A
5th Place – Bakery C

Let’s see if it changes this week!

(My spreadsheet for this week)

Bakery A:

6 flavors are available (1 point) with the option of 3 different flavors of frosting (2 points). Fondant (which is kind of like really thick, moldable frosting) is sadly unavailable 🙁 (0 points)

Bakery A has not gotten back to me regarding their delivery options…so I will just have to give them a neutral 3 on all categories (this WILL change when I hear back from them!). So, 3 points for distance (how far are they willing to go), and 3 points for pricing.

Alternative options for Bakery A include flourless chocolate cake, unique designs such as princess shaped cakes, and colorful tiers. This isn’t a whole lot of alternative options….so I give Bakery A 2 points.

Pricing for Bakery A’s cakes are $4 per slice (I will estimate 100 guests for all five bakeries), so it would cost $400 for a full cake (4 points).

The designs that are available for Bakery A seem very much the same….only slightly different variations in the frosting. The frosting art is beautiful, but all the cake structures look the same (2 points).

Total score for Bakery A this week: 17

Bakery B:

8 flavors of cake are available (2 points) with 16 different “frosting” options. I put frosting in quotes because the frosting is described as mousse and I’m not sure if it’s inside the layers of the cake and the ACTUAL frosting is on the outside or not… So I will grant Bakery B with 8 official frosting options for points’ sake because the are different flavors, but the outside frosting looks the same (3 points). Fondant is tragically unavailable 🙁 (0 points).

The maximum distance Bakery B is willing to deliver is 25 miles from their shop (4 points), and they charge $70-$75 for delivery. That is approximately $3 per mile (VERY ROUGHLY ESTIMATED). (3 points).

Alternative options for Bakery B include beautiful design options, gluten free options, and the option to have a full cupcake display. This is a very good variety of options, so I would give Bakery B 4 points.

They offer their cake at $4.25 a slice, so with 100 guests, that’s $425 for a cake (3 points).

As for style and design options, Bakery B offers MULTIPLE absolutely GORGEOUS designs! Square tiers, circular tiers, and “naked” cakes (which are cakes staked with frosting layers, but no outside layer of frosting). (3 points)

Total score for Bakery B this week: 22

Bakery C:

This one took a while on their website…and I still might not be correct. Bakery C has approximately 94 flavors of cake (5 points), with 76 flavors of frosting (5 points)! WOAH! Options galore! Fondant is READILY available here in all sorts of colors (3 points). Bakeries C and D are the only bakeries of the five that had fondant available.

As for delivery options, Bakery C has again impressed me with a maximum delivery distance of 75 miles (5 points)! Unfortunately, their delivery charge ranges from $35 to $150. Roughly estimated delivery price is only $2 per mile though, so I guess it’s not that bad (4 points).

Bakery C offers many “gluten aware” cakes (whatever gluten aware means…), trendy designs, and LOTS of cupcake options! These options earn Bakery C 3 points.

The pricing of Bakery C’s wedding cakes are $3.50 per slice which estimates the cost of the cake to be $350 plus a $50 per hour fee. I estimated 2 hours to bring the total to $450 in total (2 points).

Bakery C really knocked it out of the park with style and design options! There are so many AMAZING extravagant designs that are both beautiful and excessive, but simple designs are available as well if that’s not your thing 😉 (4 points).

Total score for Bakery C this week: 31

Bakery D:

15 delicious looking flavors of cake are available to choose from (4 points), and there are 14 flavors of frosting to compliment them (4 points)! Fondant is available here as well – again, in many colors (3 points). Bakeries C and D are the only bakeries of the five that had fondant available.

I was rather annoyed with Bakery D’s inability to give me even a ROUGH estimate of their delivery charges! Grrrr….. it isn’t THAT hard, is it? Oh well….. But unfortunately this means I have to give Bakery D 3 points in the distance category and 1 point in the price per mile category because they DID say they deliver “all over the Twin Cities” and that seems like a fair distance…

Despite the above disappointment, I was greatly impressed with Bakery D’s alternative options! They offer cupcake displays, DOUGHNUT displays (I know…DOUGHNUTS!), dessert buffet tables, and beautiful design options! (5 points).

The pricing estimate of their cake is NOT available. This was rather annoying, and again, I will just have to give Bakery D 1 point because it is very inconvenient not to have at least a rough estimate.

There are TONS of elegant and beautiful designs available at Bakery D! So many options available from very fancy to simple (5 points).

Total score for Bakery D this week: 26

Bakery E:

Bakery E gave me a brochure showing cross sections of their 9 cake flavors (3 points) and describing their 2 signature frostings (1 point). Fondant is (as with bakeries A and B) sadly unavailable (0 points).

Bakery E is only willing to delivery up to 15 miles (2 points), and the cost ranges from $12 to $20. Their average cost per mile is the lowest of the five (that I know of so far) at $1.33 (5 points)!

Bakery E does not offer very many alternative options….just cupcakes and smaller sized cakes (1 point). That’s it.

The pricing of their cake is about $56 for one cake, but you’d probably need about 4 cakes to feed 100 people (their cakes are small), so I estimated the price of having their cake at your wedding to be $225 (5 points).

Bakery E pretty much only has 1 design option for their cakes….the only design option would be whether or not you want a tiered cake or not. Because of the very limited design options, Bakery E receives only 1 point in this category.

Total score for Bakery E this week: 18

Summary:

This is the most exciting part for me! The point totals 🙂

Here are the winners for THIS WEEK:

Bakery C – 31 points
Bakery D – 26 points
Bakery B – 22 points
Bakery E – 18 points
Bakery A – 17 points

Wow! Last week, Bakery C was in last place… different criteria, different results. Okay, so that point total is cool, but what we’re MOST interested in is the TOTAL points each bakery has earned so far. Here are the standings THIS week with their last week’s position (LWP) in parenthesis: