If you have only ever bought cake from a cabinet, ordering from a patisserie works differently, and the difference catches people out. Here is the whole process, including the bits that go wrong.
Nothing is sitting in a freezer
Every celebration cake in our range is made for your collection date in our central city studio. That is why it tastes the way it does, and it is also why you cannot walk in on a Saturday morning and buy one.
Lead times, in three tiers
Two days covers most whole cakes. That is the standard — shorter than most people assume, and shorter than a lot of places in the city.
Three days for some of the larger desserts, which need the extra time structurally rather than for scheduling reasons — the Black & White Chocolate Mousse and the Romeo & Juliet cheesecake among them.
Seven days for petit fours for events. They are the most labour-intensive thing we make and there is no way to compress it.
You do not have to memorise any of this. The date picker at checkout only offers collection dates we can actually meet for what is in your cart — if a date is selectable, it is real.
Choosing a size
This is where people most often get it wrong, because our cakes cut bigger than they look:
- 15cm layer cake — 12 to 15 slices
- 20cm layer cake — 20 to 25 slices
- 25cm layer cake — 30 to 35 slices
- 20cm loaf — 8 slices · 25cm bundt — 16
- 20cm dessert or tart — 10 to 12
- Mini cakes and mini desserts — one serving each
A 15cm cake covers a party of a dozen comfortably. Count the room before you size up.
Collection, not delivery
We are pickup only — we do not courier cakes, and that is deliberate. A four-layer cake in the back of a van is a different cake by the time it arrives.
Everything is collected from our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street, within our opening hours:
- Tuesday to Friday: 10am to 6pm
- Saturday: 10am to 3pm
Carry the box from the bottom, keep the car cool, and drive like you are carrying something expensive. At home, store at room temperature away from sunlight and heat — refrigerate a layer cake overnight or in a hot spell, and bring it back out an hour or two before serving. To cut it cleanly, dip the knife in hot water and dry it between every slice.
What you can get on the day
Plenty, as it happens. The cabinet is stocked in opening hours with cake slices, mini desserts and packaged sweet treats, and our made-to-order desserts are plated while you wait. If you have left a birthday to the morning of, that is your answer — along with a gift card.
The three mistakes people make
Ordering too late for the flavour they wanted. Two days is the minimum, not the ideal. Popular cakes book out first, so the later you order, the shorter the list.
Forgetting the dietary question until collection. If someone at the table avoids gluten, look at our no-added-gluten range when you order, not after. Note that our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur and nothing is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease.
Assuming a public holiday week works like a normal week. It does not — order further ahead around Christmas, Easter and Mother's Day, when the schedule fills first.
Changing or cancelling
Plans move. Contact us directly and we will sort it — if it is more than three days before your pickup date, you get a full refund.
What is not on the menu
The menu is the range. We do not make off-menu or bespoke cakes to a brief, so if you are hoping to have something recreated from a photograph, we are not the right fit — better to know that before you plan around it. Sizes and formats are as listed.
For volume rather than bespoke — an event, a function, trade supply — get in touch. Our FAQ covers transport, storage and serving, and there is more in our piece on what "custom" actually means here.
