Need a favor? How about a cake?

Try Party Favors in Coolidge Corner (Brookline), they’ll make your cake (or cupcakes) and provide you with a large selection of party favors and goodies. My son’s third birthday party was this past weekend and I wanted something other than your typical grocery store, trans fat-laden, disgustingly sweet, birthday cake. Friends of ours had their wedding cake made by Party Favors and it was delicious! I decided to give them a try for Chance’s party.

First off, I made the mistake of ordering his cake only a week before the party. This place is crazy-busy, and if you do not order in advance, you are given a very limited set of options to choose from. Sure, you can pick any cake and icing type, but your odds of getting one of their unbelievably creative designs is slim to null! This place specializes in making kid’s (and adult’s) cake dreams come true. They can pretty much bake and decorate a cake in any shape, size, color, theme and/or character you want. It’s quite amazing. You can browse their one-of-many cake catalogs (such as these children’s birthday cake options), or come up with your own idea.

Chance wanted a pirate party. I wanted a pirate cake… but due to the short notice, the best they could do was a rectangular cake, decorated in the icing colors of my choice, with room left for me to place some pirate toys and objects on top. If I had actually been responsible and ordered in advance, I could have had a treasure chest, pirate ship or ocean scene cake. Oh well! Our cake still came out very cute — after I added some Playmobile pirates, a boat, treasure chest and additional pirate-themed accessories!

The cake itself was chocolate with a banana and custard filling. The icing was very sweet, but not disgustingly so. We did a tan background with brown, red and black trim and writing. The brown icing used on the trim was actually chocolate flavored… not just colored brown. The filling was delicious and the cake was good… though a little dry on the edges. We received many compliments on it. I will try to post a picture or two of it later…

Worth the $77 price tag attached to the cake (which did serve 45 to 50 guests)? Yep… it was good, tasted homemade and was plenty big. Next time I will definitely order in advance and take advantage of the cake decorator’s exceptional talent!