Treat of the Week: Sweet Dreams Cakes

Over the holiday break, my brother and I were waiting for Jason while he went to a hardware store.  We saw the sign for Sweet Dreams Fine Pastries and Coffee House and we decided to pop in and look around while we were killing time.  We had no idea what was waiting inside!

We saw a counter with a few refrigerated cases that had some lovely looking cakes and treats inside. But it seemed like a very large store for what seemed to be a fairly small amount of inventory.  The very nice lady behind the counter started making friendly small talk and asked if we had been in before.  When we said it was our first time, she told us that we needed to go back to the cake room to look at what they do.  Sounded like a good adventure, so we went back to the front of the store and down the hall to a large room around the corner.  Holy Cannoli!

The giant room was filled with giant cakes!  Many of them were 5, 6, 7 feet tall!  They were covered in gumpaste and fondant flowers and folds and decorations!  I felt like a little fairy in a magical sugarland!  It was quite a spectacle.

We returned to the friendly counter lady and she told us a little about the business, how they rent out these cakes for events and then serve sheet cakes for the guests to eat.  The bakery does a lot of custom work for all sizes of events. And the little cakes in the display cases were examples of the different flavors that can be ordered for anything from birthday cakes to wedding cakes.

Of course, after such a delightful experience, we wanted some cake!  So we bought a sampling of mini desserts to take home with us.  I had the strawberry and lemon cakes above.  I enjoyed them both very much.  The strawberry one had a soft, creamy layer of strawberry cream inside with vanilla cake.  It was very smooth and not overly sweet.  It reminded me of strawberry ice cream the way it just melted in my mouth.  The lemon cake was not too tart, very creamy with a mild lemon flavor, and a little gummy lemon candy on the top, which I thought was a nice touch, and a nice contrasting texture.

Since the visit, I have described it to other people, and apparently I have had cakes from Sweet Dreams before, at family events.  It's kind of a local legend and I don't know how I missed it for so long! I am very happy to know about this custom cake resource now. Check out the Sweet Dreams website, which is an impressive collection of cake options and designs.