As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was Mika’s 6th birthday party and as usual I got her a Safeway cake. I’d been going with Safeway cakes for several years – ever since I got a horrible cake from Just Desserts for her welcoming ceremony. Why pay $60+ dollars for something that in the end doesn’t taste good?
Part of the reason I go with Safeway is that there aren’t many choices for cakes in San Leandro. Costco has cheap cakes, but I dislike the frostings (which you know most likely have hydrogenated oils in them) and they only have basic designs, OK when your kid is very young but a problem by the time they are into cartoon characters. (Yes, I’m one of those parents that gives into commercialism and let’s her kids have character parties – I also buy Bratz for Mika! shoot me).
The chinese bakery
has nicely decorated cakes, with cartoon characters and all, but I find their cakes not to be sweet enough. This is a plus for some people, but I’m just not into them.
There is, of course, Marita’s, whom I like to support as they are locally and minority owned -, but while I like their cakes (in particualr their frostings), they don’t offer decorations. Plus I’m not sure you can get a rectangular cake that is less than a 1/2 or full sheet.
Then there is Baskin Robbins. We’ve gotten cakes from there before, and they are usually pretty good – if extremely expensive. Indeed, we were planning to get Mika one of them – but they didn’t have the Bratz decorations she wanted.
So we went for our tried and true Safeway cake. They didn’t have Bratz decorations but they did have Bratz pets decorations (I didn’t even know they existed!) and that was OK with Mika – who by then realized there weren’t many other choices. Plus the good thing about Safeway is that if you don’t want such a junky cake you can order it with whipped cream and strawberries (or another fruit). I usually get the white cake, which is very light, and the results are very good. For Camila’s birthday I actually got the whipped cream and banana cake, and I may have liked it even more. Best of all, the kids love it and I don’t feel they are eating too much sugar.
The one minus about Safeway cakes is that they aren’t cheap. A small, 1/4 sheet cake is about $21! You can get a half-sheet cake for about $16 at Costco. But hey, I’m willing to pay for whipped cream and fresh strawberries (and nice decorations). You can order the cakes just one day in advance, good for us procrastinators.
One thing to keep in mind is that the cake book that they have outside does not include all the decoration options. I was bummed when we didn’t find the Bratz there, but Mika insisted that we ask if they had Bratz anyway. I thought it was futile, but once again my 6-yo proved to be smarter than her mother. They indeed have other cake books under the counter – and usually they carry a Bratz cake. Unfortunately, there is a backorder on Bratz decorations and that’s why we had to go for the Bratz pets, but the point is that even if you don’t see what you want in the book, you should ask.
Anyway, this is a long posting to say that I like Safeway cake.
I WILL GO TO SAFEWAY RIGHT NOW! I NEED A SPEED RACER CAKE BY TOMORROW, (I’M ONE OF THE procrastinators. :)I WAS TOLD TO GO TO SAM’S OR COSTCO BUT THEY ARE NOT CLOSE TO ME. SAFEWAY IS AROUND THE CORNER! THANK YOU FOR THAT COMMENT!
Yesterday was Mike’s birthday and we got him a Safeway cake (of course!). This time we had chocolate cake with banana filling and whipped cream topic. Mike liked the chocolate cake/banana combination even more than the white cake/strawberry one that we usually get. I wasn’t as convinced, I prefer the subtler taste of the white cake, which doesn’t really conflict with the banana.
The one problem we had was the whipped cream. The girls’ birthdays are during the cool months – but yesterday was one of the hottest days in the year and the whipped cream did not fare well. It was too light and made a mess. So, perhaps for the summer months a cheap Costco cake with “buttercream” topping may be a better choice – though you don’t get the cool decorations.
I too have been using the Safeway cakes. For my daughter’s 1st birthday I had ordered a bunch of plates, cups, decorations etc on line. When I went to go and order the cake no one anywhere carried a matching design. I took one of the napkins into the Safeway store and they matched it exactly! Not only on the sheet cake but beautifully on the individual cake for my daughter. On another occasion, I was trying to find a cake with Motorcross! My son rides and he lives and breathes motorcross. (he was 12 at the time). Safeway just told me to bring in whatever toy item I wanted on the cake and they would create a background scene to go with it. My son was so excited! Then the next year he was all about the “Transformers”. Safeway said the didn’t have the rights to that item but they could create something that wasn’t part of the decorations. So they created another scene on top of the cake and I gave them miniature figuines to put on top! All the boys at the party thought that was the best cake they had ever seen! Again, my go to place is Safeway. They are very willing to go outside the box to make you happy and to be honest I don’t think their cakes are expensive for what you get!
My 3 year old daughter is really into Barney. As any parent with kiddos who love Barney knows, it is extremely difficult to find Barney decorations anywhere.. I have been told that they are fazing Barney out. My daughter really wanted a Barney themed party and I found some decorations online, but could not find anyone who could do a Barney cake. I went to my local Silverlake Safeway and they did a Barney cake from the decoration I brought them! The cake was perfect!! It looked just like the napkin I brought them! And the cake was delicious! I will be going to Safeway for her next birthday! THANKS SAFEWAY!!
Safeway Bakeries Carry Over 25-30 cake decorating designs for KIDS! This is only talking about cartoons: Mickey Mouce, BRATZ, etc… every new kids movie release in the theathers Safeway got the design for it, there might not be a picture in the store bakery, but all you need to do, just ask ! Safeway Cake decorators are really talanted (i’m agree there are some mess up’s, but who is perfect…NO ONE everybody make mistakes and learn) they would do any desgn customer request, whats possible of course…
And SAFEWAY is the only STORE that uses REAL WHIP CREAM! It is Great! Love Safeway, cakes for every occasion… always from Safeway. Guys if you had bad expiriance with Safeway cakes, please give them another chance everybody deserve second chance.
is every one brain dead ? google wasnt made yesterday. is everyone really going to sit there and wait for responses?omg. get the number to the store off google and call and ask yourself for a fast answer. it isnt rocket science bitches
We can always google and get menu/catalog/ information from safeway. But, what we want here is user experience and the combinations they tried and their families experiences. Thanks all for the information about safeway cakes.
I bought a chocolate cake for my grand daughters birthday yesterday it was gross dry like the desert she choked on it reall bad I choked on it and we are all sick now my sister in law looked at the package and Im shocked its dated March 16th 2016 thats 22 days ago,I wonder if I should contact my lawyer..u
Oh forgot to say that I bought it at safeway
Has anyone tried the Safeway cake with whipped cream during Dec and had it outside for about 1.5 hrs. I don’t have refrigerator at the party place but do love their whipped cream frosting. I will keep it in car trunk with a ice brick around it. But wondering if anyone else has been in similar situation and what was the experience?