All I wanted for my birthday was a fancy cake.  I chose a Hunger Games theme and I ordered from Lakeview Bakery in Rowlett, TX, because of their good reviews.  What a total waste of money!

First, what I wanted vs. what I got.  I sent them the picture on the left and asked if they could do it just like the picture, but with a few modifications.  The cake on the right is what I got.  I told them I wanted a mockingly on laying on the top of the cake and as large as the top of the cake.  They mostly managed that.  I wanted “May the odds be ever in your favor” rather than “I volunteer as tribute.”  I asked them to put it on the bottom cake.  They managed that.  However, I asked if they could do the writing in the same elegant font as the picture.  They said they could, but you will see that they did it in weird puffy-paint-like font.  I asked if rather than the “district 12” medallion, they could do a small “40” in the same font as the picture and put it on the top cake.  They assured me they could.  You will see that the 40 is actually enormous – the entire height of the top cake – and it is in the same grade-school-esque puffy font.  I told them the berries and flames were important to me.  I did not want a banner at the bottom – just flames and berries.  Also note that the borders I got are about twice the size of the cake I wanted.  Instead of small purple berries (like in the movie and on the cake on the left), I got big blue berries. Rather than flames, I got weird blades of grass.  That was my biggest disappointment given that flames are so important to the story.  I was HORRIBLY disappointed, but what could I do?  I had to pay 1/2 of the $165 fee up front and it was non-refundable at that point.  I was trapped.  I decided to simply hope it would taste as good as the reviews lead me to believe it would…

Second, the taste… The bottom was chocolate cake and the top was strawberry cake.  I also purchased Kroger cupcakes for the children who would be coming.  The bakery said the cake had 32 servings, but you can get a LOT more out of it.  So that was a nice surprise.  The first problem was the more than 1/4 inch thick icing all over the cake.  Now I’m generally a corner piece of cake girl, but it was WAYYYYYY too much icing.  The cakes tasted like any store bought cake.  There was nothing special about them at all.  Truthfully, the flavor in a Kroger cake is as good or better and costs MUCH less.  There was nothing magical about this cake at all.  I had wanted to try some of their speciality flavors, so they offered to do tasting for me that would be less than $20.  However, there is absolutely no flexibility in the tasting flavors and it did not include enough of the flavors I was interested in.  I wish now I had gone ahead and tasted the flavors they offered in the tasting because I would have discovered that this is a very average bakery and would not have wasted my money.

Regarding the moistness you read about in other reviews:  It’s true the cakes are moist, but they are so moist that the cake loses total integrity after more than one half is cut and handed out.  The left over quarters of cake collapsed and ended up looking like garbage, so we threw them in the trash.  In all fairness, most of the reviews talking about taste and moistness were from brides and bridal cakes are notoriously gross, so I’m sure this bakery could at least make you a moist and edible bridal cake.

Two out of 25 adults really liked the cake – one because if you cut it just right, you could get a decent sized piece of “cake” that was really only icing.  The other because she was trying to make me feel better about my utter disappointment.  The rest of the adults told me that “next time” I should go to “that bakery in Wylie” or Kroger.  No one else complimented the cake at all.  When I asked if anyone wanted to take cake home with them, all refused it.  However, several people playfully fought over who would get to take the two leftover Kroger cupcakes.

What a waste of $165.  Never again.