The Yellow Rose Cakery – Business Review

by Thomas Miller – Food Blogger / Restaurant Critic for Vero Vine

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As a kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, my mom would always make my birthday or other special occasion cakes from “scratch”.  She would grab a box cake mix and a jar of icing off the shelf at the grocery store and make an 8 x 11 cake for me.  It was always frosted nicely and she would decorate the best she could, so to me, this was as great as cake was growing up.  As I got older and more interested in culinary arts, I actually took a special home economics cake decorating class in elementary school.  We learned all about baking and how to decorate cakes.  My final project was a Star Wars R2-D2 cake that I think turned out pretty good considering my age and experience level!  Later in life I was still interested in cake decorating, so my wife and I took a class from JC Penney’s when they used to offer them.  I never really got that good at it, but it was definitely a lot of fun and I did learn a thing or two about cake decorating.

In today’s cake making and decorating world, it’s a totally different animal than what I learned many years ago.  The baker has to be a visionary and an artist.  They have to take an idea and make it from nothing.  At The Yellow Rose Cakery, that visionary is Andi Brown.  She is the brains and artist that creates some totally amazing cakes for her customers.  From the basic to the extreme, she is able to take care of all her customer’s needs.  I had an opportunity to sit down with her recently and sample some of her cakes.

Let’s dive right in and take a look at what Andi made for us to try!

All we could say was WOW once we saw what she made for us to try.  These are known as The Yellow Rose Cakery Industrials design and are $65.00 each and serve 20 people.  The price may vary slightly depending on the level of detail you would like, so be sure to ask Andi for additional details.  With these 5 cakes, there were over 100 servings of cake and there were only 6 of us at the tasting.  Needless to say, we all got to take a bunch of cake home.  Below I will dive into each individual cake and will give you the specific details of each one.

Let’s get started!

This is one of her birthday cake designs and is 1/2 white and 1/2 chocolate cake.  There are four  layers of alternating cake flavors and are separated with a vanilla buttercream icing.  The outside is then iced with her vanilla buttercream, then painted with the rainbow colors and sprinkles are added for decoration. The meringue drops were bubble gum flavored and a nice touch.  This is perfect for the someone that likes a traditional flavored cake.

This is unlike any other cake that I have heard of or tried before.  It’s a Pumpkin Pie layered cake.  So what does that mean exactly?  Andi makes a pumpkin pie the traditional way, then adds pumpkin flavored cake batter over the top of it, and bakes it all as one.  She does this multiple times, then uses those as the layers in the cake.  Here is the official description from her website:  “A layer of pie crust baked to golden brown and then a layer of pumpkin pie and a layer of pumpkin cake baked to perfection, then layered and iced with our vanilla bean buttercream.”  For the pumpkin spiced flavor aficionados, this is truly heaven on a plate.  When you cut it open, you can definitely see all of the different layers of the cake and the pie.  The pumpkin pie filling helps keep the cake very moist.  Surprisingly it did not seem as sweet as you think it might be with everything that it has going on.  I’ve heard she also does this same type of cake with an apple pie, so I’m looking forward to trying that one soon!

Up next is Andi’s version of a red velvet cake.  It has multiple layers of red velvet cake with a vanilla bean buttercream icing in between each.  I don’t think I have ever tried a “real” red velvet cake before because this tasted different than what I was expecting. This is not your typical red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. Andi told us that a red velvet cake is kind of thought as a “garbage” cake because of all the ingredients used to make it.  The flavor was subtle, yet complex due to all of the different ingredients used.

This is known as the Peachy F@#ckin Keen cake.  It’s a “spiced brown butter cake incorporated with diced and pureed peaches, then baked to a golden perfection. Layered with our Vanilla Bean Buttercream and fresh raspberry compote, then iced in our vanilla bean buttercream.”   This is one of Andi’s most popular cakes and award-winning too!  She recently competed in the Jeane Graves Charity Cupcake Challenge at the Heritage Center a few weeks ago and took first place in 3 of the 4 categories in the Professional Baker Division!  This cake reminded me of a light & fluffy peach bread pudding and had me wishing for a scoop of vanilla ice cream to go alongside it.  This is one awesome cake and was definitely our favorite of the night!

Last but not least is Andi’s Lemon Blackberry Cake.  It’s a “light lemon zest cake incorporated with whole fresh blackberries layered with blackberry buttercream and fresh whole blackberries, then iced in our vanilla bean buttercream icing.”  The cake was very moist and the blackberries tasted very fresh.  The decoration at the top was a cinnamon crunch sugar cookie and was also quite tasty!

Photo Gallery Courtsey of Christina Klingler Photography

In Conclusion:

We were invited to attend a cake tasting at Isabella’s bridal, and I had no idea what to expect.  Most bakers just simply make a few cupcakes in their specialty flavors for potential clients to try.  Being that I am “The Food Guy” people tend to give me an over the top experience to write about.  This was definitely one of those over the top experiences.  We were simply blown away by the artistry and the cakes in all of the different flavors she made for us.  By the end of the tasting, the 6 of us there were happily sitting at the table enjoying our sugar comas.  All of Andi’s cakes are made from scratch, no box mixes here.  She even goes as far as making her own buttermilk and fondant too. She is also able to accommodate any of your personal needs, such as gluten-free, egg free, or even dairy free, so from traditional to a truly one of a kind cake, The Yellow Rose Cakery definitely has your needs covered!

Andi also makes cakes for a local charity called The Little Birthday Angels.  She donates cakes and cupcakes for them every month for their birthday parties!  LBA provides cakes to homeless children to help them celebrate their birthdays.  For more information about this charity, please visit littlebirthdayangels.org.

The Yellow Rose Cakery Website Link

The Yellow Rose Cakery Facebook Page

Phone Number:  772-766-9746