Since moving to Fishtown in November, Cake Life Bake Shop, 1306 Frankford Ave., is quickly becoming a morning, noon and nighttime operation.
The success is thanks to the talents of co-owners and “Food Network’s Cupcake Wars” winners, Lily Fischer and Nima Etemadi, and their tasty and oftentimes visually stunning cakes and other sweet and savory treats.
People on their way to work can stop in for a coffee and a breakfast hand-pie or sausage roll. The lunchtime crowd can pick up a pepperoni pizza scone and a lemonade. And people heading home from a nearby restaurant can duck in for a BYO glass of wine and something sweet for dessert. But rest assured, no matter what time of day or the occasion, Cake Life has something to tempt you and delight your sweet tooth.
Colorful and artfully designed cakes can be made to order with at least three-days’ notice, with the only limitations being your imagination as far as themes go. But there are plenty of cakes on hand daily served either whole ($45-$54) or by the slice ($5.50-$6.50). Some of the standouts were the crepe cake — a layered strata of fluffy crepes, cream filling and raspberries — the decadent double-dank chocolate cake and the lemon thyme cake, the latter two which were gloriously generous in size and pleasantly moist in consistency.
Smaller pastries hit the spot as well. The strawberry-rhubarb hand-pie ($5.50) delivers a lot of classic home-style flavor without a lot of sweet extras like icing getting in the way. Other tasty but relatively uncomplicated baked goodies include the double-chocolate espresso cookie and the honey sea-salt tart.
Ask and the owners will happily show you photos of some of the amazingly detailed custom cupcakes they have made for parties and weddings, ranging from cakes with ornate icing flowers and sugar crystals to cupcakes with characters that have included everyone from the Muppets to Lil’ Wayne (yeah, that really happened) on them.
The arsenal of sweets also includes kid- and kid-at-heart-friendly confections like “unicorn poop,” glittering, tasty rainbow-swirled meringues that Cake Life sells by the bag.
If you have a cheat day on your diet or just want to fall off the sweets wagon for a bender, Cake Life is definitely worth living. Just make time in your day for a light sugar crash afterwards.