Every Friday, Safeway has a bunch of items for $5 – among them, a bakery item. They usually rotate among a half a dozen of choices, but I was happy to find a new item this week: cube cakes. These are large, 13 oz, square portions of tall layered cakes in several flavors. They usually sell for $8. Obviously, they are large enough to share.
My closest Safeway didn’t actually have any of these available on Friday, so I had to get them from the larger Safeway a few miles away. It was worth it. The Tuxedo Truffle Cube Cake, at least, was absolutely delicious. You’d be happy to get it as a dessert at any restaurant.
The cake included layers of moist white and chocolate (I think) cake, and chocolate and cream cheese mousses. The chocolate ganache layer on top was absolutely delicious, it tasted of a deep chocolate fudge, but the strong flavor was mellowed by the rest of the lawyers. The cake was lighter than it looked and just tasty.
My daughters love Madelines. I started getting them for them when they were very little and we’d stop at Zocalo coffeehouse for a snack and play. The little cookies/cakes were the ideal size for toddler and preschoolers and even elementary age kids. Plus being small, they weren’t too expensive.
For quite a while now, Safeway has been selling these overjoyed/Safeway Select madelines boxes, baked by Sugar Bowl Bakery. I buy them for my daughter when they go on sale for $5, which happens every few Fridays. She loves them. They taste very much like the ones she remembers from her childhood. They are like a dryer, denser sponge cake, hard enough to withstand dipping but soft enough to eat on their own. Flavor wise, they are better and much cheaper than the ones we got at Trader Joe’s.
Every time I go to Trader Joe’s, I pick up one desert to try, and in one of my trips it was the frozen Chocolate Lava cakes. It must be one of Trader Joe’s worst desserts. The cakes were dry, with very little chocolate flavor. On the plus side, I did save calories by not eating more than couple of bites. I made one first according to the instructions, and then a second one with less time, but both were failures.
A few weeks ago I got a $20 voucher for $10 for Swiss Delices fine bakery & pastry through GotDailyDeals.com. I hadn’t tried the bakery before, but it got fairly good reviews on Yelp. After having tried a couple of their offerings, my conclusion is that it is fairly good, but overpriced.
Once I got to the bakery I realized that the voucher was only good for “morning pastries” (e.g. danishes and scones), bread and full cakes. Neither the beautiful looking individual dessert cakes (~$4) or the cookies (75-cents) were included. That was a pity because that’s what I was most interested in getting. We ended up getting a dozen cookies to take with us to an event, and a small chocolate mousse cake to enjoy yourselves. Cakes start at $28, so even with a voucher you end up paying $18 + tax for what is a relatively small cake.
I enjoyed both the cookies and the cake but I wasn’t awed by either. The cookies (peanut butter and chocolate chip) were a bit dry, though they had a good flavor. The same can be said about the cake, though the mousse did provide needed moisture. It was very chocolaty, my oldest daughter enjoyed it but my youngest didn’t like it. As good as it was, I much prefer the triple chocolate mousse cake from Safeway.
Swiss Delices uses organic flours, real sugar and free range eggs, which of course ads to the cost. In all, I’ll go again because I have another voucher, and if I lived in Castro Valley I’d buy one of the individual desserts to try them out, but I wouldn’t otherwise go out of my way to get something there.
Update
I returned to Swiss Delices in December just before my voucher expired (though it turns out that vouchers don’t expire in California). I was planning to get a cake to serve with Christmas Eve dinner, but the ones they had were all around $38 and I knew they wouldn’t be worth it. Instead, I got a bunch of morning pastries. My favorite were the cream cheese (or was it custard?) danishes, they were very flavorful. The cinnamon rolls were good, but a bit dry, while their bread pudding was too heavy for my taste.
If you are interested in giving them a try, you can get a $10 voucher for $5 on Valpak. This voucher seems to cover all types of pastries.
Swiss Delices
20669 Santa Maria Ave.
Castro Valley, CA
510-881-8669
I love Grocery Outlet, you never know what you’ll find there. Today I found, of all things, Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cakes. I had never heard of it until a few weeks ago when I started researching my upcoming Cayman menu. Apparently, these cakes are a very famous Cayman product, known throughout the Caribbean. I was planning on making a rum cake myself (from this recipe), but I’m thrilled at finding the real thing. And at Grocery Outlet, no less!
Of course, the price is also unbeatable – $1.50 for the 4oz cake. Not cheap in the abstract, but Amazon sells the 16-Ounce cake for over $13, twice the per-ounce price. The cake gets great reviews at Amazon and other places. I’m not sure if I’ll save it for when I serve my Cayman menu or whether I should just eat it and buy more if I like it.
Last night, to celebrate my oldest daughter’s 7th birthday (which we are celebrating again today, and celebrated before on Wednesday), I made my grandmother’s sponge cake. It has been over 25 years since I’ve had it, but I think what I made was pretty close to the original. The cake, perhaps, wasn’t as light – and the lemon curd was too creamy-looking (I remember my grandmother’s as being more translucent). But it tasted quite close to what my grandmother made, and it was very yummy.
My oldest wanted sponge cake for a tea we were hosting yesterday so I revisited this recipe with her. It was fun making it together, though a bit messy giving all the sifting and we used up lots of bowls. This time I didn’t make the lemon curd (even as a child I preferred with with whipped cream as a frosting), but rather served it along side fresh strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream. It was a big success with kids and adults alike. Thanks Granny!
December 2020 update
I made this again for our coronavirus Christmas dinner – nuclear family only – and it was a huge success. This time I didn’t add any cream to the filling, and I added only 1/2 cup of cream to the remainder to use as frosting. I think this is how I’ll make it in the future.
This cake was extra special because we used lemons from the tree that started growing on its own besides our house – probably a child of the lemon tree our neighbors used to have.
November 2022 Update
I made the cake for my Thanksgiving dinner this year at my oldest’s request. Even though I didn’t eat it until the next day, as I was too tired for dessert that night, it was perfect and just like I remembered it from my childhood. Like the time before I didn’t add cream to the filling and only 1/2 cup of cream to the frosting, and it’s definite the right way to make it.
Granny’s Sponge Cake
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
4 eggs, separated
1 cup cold water
2 tsp. lemon rind, grated
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
2 tsp. lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350F
Mix sifted flour with the baking powder and the salt. Sift three additional times. Set aside.
Beat together 4 yolks with the cold water and lemon rind until light and frothy. Gradually add 1 1/2 cups sugar and then the flour. Set aside.
In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the lemon juice and beat until it has stiff peaks.
Fold the egg whites into the flour mixture. Pour into ungreased 8″ baking pans. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool, unmold and frost.
Granny’s Lemon Frosting
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 1/3 cup water
4 tsp. butter
2 tsp. lemon rind
1/2 cup to 2 cups whipped cream*
Combine the sugar, flour, eggs, lemon juice, water and butter in a medium pot. Put pot on top of a double boiler, or directly under a very low heat, and cook stirring constantly until it thickens, about 10 minutes. Remove and cool completely.
Fold in the lemon rind and 1/2 cup of whipped cream. Spread between cake layers. Fold in the remaining 1 1/2 cups whipped cream, and frost top and sides of cake.
*Note: I think it comes out better if you don’t fold in any cream for the filling and use only 1/2 cup of whipped cream for the frosting.
Safeway refrigerated cakes are often very good, the best cakes I can get in my little city (but if you know of a good source for cakes & desserts in San Leandro, please let me know). Unfortunatelly, their non-refrigerated cakes are not as successful.
Yesterday we were going to Charlotte’s for dinner and, as usual, I figured I’d take dessert. The dessert had to stay in the car for several hours so I didn’t want something that would have to be refrigerated, thus I decided to get the non-refrigerated coconut cake. It was OK but not great. The cake itself was a little bit dry and the frosting too-sweet and artificial tasting. I wouldn’t get it again.
I love Grocery Outlet, you never know what you’ll find there. Today I found, of all things, 
for over $13, twice the per-ounce price. The cake gets great reviews at Amazon and other places. I’m not sure if I’ll save it for when I serve my Cayman menu or whether I should just eat it and buy more if I like it.
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