Let's rewind a bit to tell how I came across Carlos' Bakery. Being an avid watcher of the wedding shows on television I knew lots about Carlos' Bakery. But last fall, my friend son turned 1 and had a cake from Carlos' - I had two pieces. That's just how good it is.
Our tasting yesterday begin with coffee, excellent coffee, brewed and made to perfection! Carlos' starts off in the lead with a thumbs up for their coffee. Next we were presented with two cake books listing the flavors and cake choices. It seems limited, but once you start tasting it's really not with the various filling and cake combinations. Anyhow, we started by trying to figure out the design of the cake and what we wanted it to look like. We have a rough idea but haven't committed yet. Anyhow we're basically looking at $1000-$1200 for a cake that will feed about 150 people. This includes delivery fee to East Brunswick.
This cake seemed to be the winner in shape and a similar design ...
I was being talked into a gold and red cake but I felt that there's enough red and gold at the reception to go around so we decided a brown base would be nice. Not sure if we'd go with red ribbon or gold but the dots would definitely be white. I'm also a little unsure of the quilting and the big bow on top. It's a cake dammit.
Anyhow the pretty cake, delivery and sheet cakes for there rest comes to $1000. That's right you heard me, $1000. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.
At the tasting we had bites of:
- red velvet with cream cheesing filling
- red velvet with vanilla icing filling
- carrot cake with cream cheese filling
- vanilla cake with
- chocolate cake with ganache filling
- chocolate cake with mousse
- chocolate and vanilla cake with hazelnut filling
- chocolate cake with fudge filling
The consensus is that it was some good cake. MY favorite was the chocolate with chocolate ganache. Nick was very curious about the fondant icing and so we were able to try some white fondant icing and some chocolate fondant icing (which tastes like tootsie rolls).
I give Carlos' Bakery an A because I'll even eat the cake and I am no cake person and price well ... I am not thinking about it. I know I should but I can't right now.
What's a girl to do? I've called around to some known-by-word-of-mouth bakeries but either I wasn't sure about the bakery or, one in particular, did not do tastings. $*($*&*$# Yeah that's right NO TASTINGS!
