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HOw much is the price of a swensens cake ordered online?

Help me get the most bang for my cake buck

  • Why is a sheet cake at Whole Foods so expensive? Can I do better (in Chicago?) It doesn't need to be decorated, just tasty. I'm decorating a cake for a baby shower. I'm good with decorating but suck at baking so I figured I'd get a grocery store cake and decorate that. I'd heard cakes from Whole Foods are tasty, and I did some googling and found comments from people saying it was good and relatively cheap, so I thought I'd go check it out. I went in today and ordered a quarter sheet cake, I thought the girl said it was 24.99 but when I looked at the WF website later it said it was 39.99 which is . . . well, it seems kinda ridiculous for such a small, plain cake. Is that supposed to be the price for all of them, or only if they decorate it? I'm having second thoughts, so I was hoping those of you who are experienced in buying cakes can help me out. (I never buy them, I always make them from mixes- I know- but thought I'd go for something fancier for the occasion.) So my questions are- is this the going rate for cakes these days? Is the one from Whole Foods gonna be delicious enough to make it worth it? If so, then I don't mind paying it, really. But I'm having a hard time believing I couldn't do better somewhere else. Where else in Chicago can I get a tasty quarter or half sheet cake, frosted but without decoration, on short notice? (Also if any of you happen to know from experience whether the 24.99 or 39.99 price is the right one, I'd be interested to know. I know I could just call them but I'd feel like a dick calling about my order a bunch of times only to cancel later. I already called them once to talk about frosting.) Thanks!

  • Answer:

    Why is a sheet cake at Whole Foods so expensive? Whole Foods is a luxury store that charges luxury prices. That's why. If you want to pay normal prices for groceries, go to a regular, non-luxury grocery store. Honestly, it almost seems like a stunt post to ask whether it's possible to get a better price than Whole Foods on basically anything. So my questions are- is this the going rate for cakes these days? No. Nor is any other price at Whole Foods the going rate for the same product elsewhere. Where else in Chicago can I get a tasty quarter or half sheet cake, frosted but without decoration, on short notice? I'm not in Chicago, but in Los Angeles, you would go to Ralph's or Vons, probably. So whatever the big chain grocery store owned by the Kroger corporation is near you is probably a good place to start. Where do people usually go for groceries in Chicago? Go there. Maybe try Costco - they usually have that sort of thing for great prices and way, way cheaper than Whole Foods.

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Edit: mousse not mouse

zenon

anotheraccount

Can you get to a Costco? They have great sheet cakes.

Ideefixe

If the Whole Food has a bakery, there will be several reasons that their cakes that are more expensive then Jewels or Dominicks. The ingredients are things you would recognize as food (which spoil faster) and are much fresher. They are going to charge more because they are throwing/donating the old cakes out much sooner than other stores. The extra ingredients cost is only a small part of the over all cost of preparing, cooking and paying someone to decorate it, and then eating the cost of pitching it if it doesn't sell. Whole Foods cakes are very tasty, and to find something comparable you will need to go with cakes made at bakeries, which will often also be pricey. Costco cakes are good, they have a variety of icings including a nice mouse filled and butter chocolate that is good. Jewel and Dominicks are only a small step above a cake from wallmart, which are so awfull I skip them at parties. TJ's doesn't do sheet cake in Chicago-land because the corporate bakery sucks at cakes/desserts. My vote is for http://www.webersbakery.com/

zenon

In this situation I'd recommend just buying nicer cake mix. It's not all Betty Crocker- you can get fancy organic cake mix with real cocoa or whatever, and it'll still be cheaper than buying a pre-made cake.

showbiz_liz

I've had perfectly decent-tasting cakes at work birthdays and the like from Costco. Whole Foods will charge more because they can. For what it's worth, though, it is perfectly possible to buy things there that don't cost any more than at a Safeway. An item like a cake is not among them, though. /used to work at WF.

rtha

Agreed--I'd go with a small neighborhood baker, myself.

the young rope-rider

Former baker here: LN has your answer. If you want the ultimate cake, you want cake that's made fresh, preferably from scratch. A lot of bakeries will say their stuff is "fresh baked," which is different from scratch. The other question you want to ask is how they make their frosting. Don't expect or ask for the recipe. What you want to know is if they're using real butter, chocolate, etc as opposed to the stuff out of the tubs that is just shortening and sugar. Honestly, the latter is what most people associate with "frosting." If that'll work there's no need to run all over the city.

Atom12

FWIW, the reason I don't want to make it myself is because I'm doing fondant on top of it. I've done that before (cake I baked myself + fondant) and making sure the cake is perfectly flat, and that the base layer of frosting is smooth and flat enough for the fondant to look good, takes a long time and can be really frustrating. I just don't have the tools to do it efficiently like a bakery does. So that's why I'm buying it instead of making it.

GastrocNemesis

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