costco cake?

[boilermakermom]

i went into costco to order DD's birthday cake, and am a bit confused by their bakery. i am assuming they are trying (or have been trying) to get out of the cake business.....

i noticed they only do half sheet cakes, in either white or chocolate with prespecified designs. it is either all white (cake and frosting) or all chocolate.

does anyone know the price? it isn't listed on the sheet i picked up. i called and was told the bakery doesn't have a phone. really? ok. the woman i spoke with told me a half sheet is $17.99.

does this seem crazy cheap to anyone else? as cheap as it is, i am considering ordering from a local bakery. i didn't see any designs that i really liked. we are doing a dr seuss theme, but i was planning on doing red and blue polka dots or balloons on the cake.

[infomama]

It's that cheap and they bakery should have a phone...
They are a great value for large parties. I order from a local baker when the parties have less than 15 guests.

ETA--I stand corrected, our Costco bakery does not have a phone.

[new_mommy25]

If you want designs go to Sam's Club. They have almost everything. Costco cakes have always been very basic and inexpensive, but they taste good.

[brittone2]

i went into costco to order DD's birthday cake, and am a bit confused by their bakery. i am assuming they are trying (or have been trying) to get out of the cake business.....

i noticed they only do half sheet cakes, in either white or chocolate with prespecified designs. it is either all white (cake and frosting) or all chocolate.

does anyone know the price? it isn't listed on the sheet i picked up. i called and was told the bakery doesn't have a phone. really? ok. the woman i spoke with told me a half sheet is $17.99.

does this seem crazy cheap to anyone else? as cheap as it is, i am considering ordering from a local bakery. i didn't see any designs that i really liked. we are doing a dr seuss theme, but i was planning on doing red and blue polka dots or balloons on the cake.
Our costco bakery does not have a phone. I had to call to change a date one time and they had to relay the message from CS to the bakery.

One option is to get the cake in all white (learned about this here of course) and then purchase decorations on etsy or design your own. Whether that's a savings or not will depend on what the other bakeries charge locally. There are some really cute options on etsy that can be added to an all-white Costco cake.

[infomama]

One thing I don't like about Costco's cakes is the amount of frosting they use to make the designs....it's ridiculous.

[MommyofAmaya]

If you want designs go to Sam's Club. They have almost everything. Costco cakes have always been very basic and inexpensive, but they taste good.

We just got a cake from Sam's with the whipped cream frosting and everybody asked where we got it from. We fed 60+ people for less than $40 with leftovers. I've used Costco cakes for the last couple of years and actually liked the Sam's cake much better.

[infomama]

One option is to get the cake in all white (learned about this here of course) and then purchase decorations on etsy or design your own. There are some really cute options on etsy that can be added to an all-white Costco cake.
That is a seriously good idea!! Thanks!

[nrp]

It really is 17.99, and it is a very good cake, IMO (although some disagree). They used to have more flexibility and choices with fillings and cake combos, but they have limited it now. For DS's birthday recently, I just ordered a plain chocolate sheet cake and decorated it myself. But, they do have a balloon theme, in case you missed it - here's a link to the current designs:

http://addictedtocostco.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_0183.jpg

I bet if you asked someone in the bakery, they would do the balloons in just red and blue (there is a space where you can add notes to the sheet). I have found them to be very helpful - for DS's cake they gave me a tub of extra icing for free for my decorations.

[weech]

I love costco cakes. I could eat them daily. Ours are about the same price and it's true, there is no phone in the bakery. I was told once that Costco wants people to have to come in to order the cake as well as come in to pick it up - more opportunities for shopping.

[justlearning]

I got a half-sheet cake from Costco for DS's birthday 6 months ago. I was able to order chocolate with white frosting by just writing it as a special request on the order form.

If you want to make it more personalized, you can get a edible picture made somewhere else (unlike Sams Club, Costco doesn't do them) and have them put that on the cake with balloons or whatever else around it. That's what we did for DS's cake and it looked cute.

[fattytuna]

YMMV, but non-standard designs could be done at Costco Bakery, provided you don't require anything too fancy and can live with all white frosting.

We had two Costco cakes for DD/DS's birthday parties last summer. DD's theme was Princess and the Frog; DS's was Dora/Diego.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6124/6009473753_e42bfd07c0_o.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6015/6010023142_e0bf0f205c_o.jpg

PP's already shared a lot of good info. They were a great deal for the number of people we had to feed. Taste-wise, IMO, it's a bit on the sweet-side. But to kids, cake is cake and they will not complain.

Prior to placing my order, I also read the entry in the Addicted To Costco blog and found out that Costco is willing to do plain cakes without any designs. DC already had all these themed figures from play sets. So my original plan was to just use those as cake toppers. Then I found a local source (a lady that sells cake decorating supplies out of her home) who sold me two edible cake images - they were about $8 a piece. I took them with me to see what our Costco was willing to do.

Our Costco bakery is VERY accommodating. The man who took my order told me they could slightly modify their basic designs, but I would have to put the edible images on by myself, which I totally understand. So I picked out the "Bouquet" design for the Princess and the Frog cake, the "Happy Birthday" design for the Dora/Diego cake. I specified the number, color and positions of the flowers I wanted, as well as any other elements I wanted taken out (I only had things taken out and not things added in, as with the figures as cake toppers it would have been busy enough). The man also asked exactly where I wanted the images, took the edible images I had, cut out paper templates so he knew exactly the size of the white area he needed to leave out, and wrote down everything exactly the way I wanted. He also assured me he would be there on the morning the cakes were made. I was extremely pleased with how the cakes turned out.

Just to clarify, the cakes I picked up was very plain but exactly what I wanted. I put all the figures on the cakes by myself. The edible images were very easy to place (I can't cook or bake) if you follow the instructions. They way I wanted my cakes didn't leave much room for the writing. So I just printed small paper banners, laminated them and stuck them on the cakes. Honestly I think it would have turned out just fine without the edible images and with just Happy Birthday writings in the middle. I'm a curious person and just wanted to see how these edible images worked as I've never tried them before.

And no, there were no finger holes when we picked up the cake from Costco - they did a perfect job on the cakes. Those holes you see on the front of DS's cake were left by him and his eager and enthusiastic friends :)

Just for comparison, this year I ordered 1/2 sheets from Safeway. I was attracted to the whipped-cream frosting and wanted to try it. Our Tangled/Cars 2 cakes were $32 a piece.

[bcafe]

I read in the Costco connection magazine that the bakery is more than willing to accomodate special cake requests. My SIL had a custom grad cake for my nieces.

[smiles33]

I don't know if you saw my thread from a couple months ago, but for my DD1's birthday in May, I wanted a Costco cake but didn't place the order in time so DH bought a Disney Princess cake from the local supermarket. Not only was it $35 for a 1/2 sheet (twice Costco's price), but it had NO icing in between the 2 tiers so when I sliced the cake, the cake fell apart and every guest had 2 chunks of the 2 tier sheetcake. I thought it must be a mistake and complained to the bakery and the employee had the nerve to imply I was too cheap to spring for the fruit-filled cake which was why my "cheap" cake had nothing in between the tiers.

Long story short, I will ALWAYS order my cakes from Costco over any local supermarket bakery. They taste good, they're cheap, and they are easy to deal with (provided you don't wait until the last minute like I did, unless you don't mind one of their off-the-rack cakes).

[DrSally]

It is cheap, and they're very good. I haven't ordered in a long time, and didn't realize they had reduced the number of options (used to be able to get carrot, IIRC). I think they taste good (and like the Sam's as well).