ALEXIS SEBRING
Life Assistant
The diet conscious need not read further. For everyone else, please take note that local sweet shops such as Cakemonkey, Susiecakes and Scoops are easily available to those who crave desserts.
Susiecakes is a simple and small store located in Calabasas. They serve cupcakes, cake by the slice and cookies. The cupcakes, $3 each, are just the right size to fill a body up. The flavors are red velvet, chocolate, vanilla, mocha and chocolate mint.
“Our most popular items are the red velvet cake and cupcake,” said employee Christine Daniels. “They’re both very, very popular.”
The shop is quaint, but in its own perfect way. “Ours is an all-American cake shop,” said Daniels said. “It’s old-fashioned and home grown. We don’t get fancy with our flavors. Generally, we have chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. We stick to a more traditional format. Whereas other places try to do lavender, we just stick to the original stuff.”
For the most part, this is a good thing. Walking into Susiecakes will not make anybody’s head spin with too many choices.
The little shop does have cute cards and envelopes along with candles and other small items. It is a lovely and simple place to munch on some sweets.
Cakemonkey represents the complete opposite. It has more variety in the flavors, and cakes can be ordered and delivered for fees based on shipping locality.
Cakemonkey Bakery offers treats such as Cake Monkey Moguls, which consists of vanilla cake with homemade caramel filling, marshmallow frosting and toasted coconut. Chocolate lovers will enjoy the Must Love Chocolate, which is devil’s food cake with crunchy Valrhona chocolate pearls and dark chocolate frosting, all topped with crumbled honeycomb. If chocolate isn’t on the diet, they serve the Almond Orangutan, a toasted almond cake with homemade orange preserves and orange- scented buttercream. The prices fall in the range of around $6.
According to Cakemonkey’s Web site, the creator is Lisa Olin, and in the beginning she simply wanted to put cakes out there that everybody would like. She hired a chef, Elizabeth Belkind, who had already become successful and known to the culinary world. Belkind has helped the unique bakery thrive.
Scoops is a homemade ice cream parlor in Los Angeles This is another colorful and variety-filled shop. Even vegan choices are available. Some flavors include Red Bull sorbet, chocolate orange and jasmine, Oreo, mascarpone, vegan raspberry tiramisu, honey saffron and Jack Daniels. Enough said.
All of these shops have delicious desserts that are perfect for any occasion, whether it be a birthday or a bad day. Visiting these local sites will surely fill an empty stomach.
03-27-2008
