Gluten-Free: Bittersweet Shop & Birthday Cake!

Liberty turned two yesterday. Her birthday party was on Sunday the 19th; incidentally, my mother's actual birthday.  All the specialness made it imperative to get the absolute best gluten-free cake I could find.  A possibly excessive amount of research narrowed this down to two options from an initial shortlist of five.  Bittersweet, located conveniently inside an office park in Woburn, utterly blew away the competition in the finals.

Oh yes.

Of primary importance was to have a truly gluten-free cake.  Although Bittersweet does serve glutenous food, they have a regular gluten-free menu consisting of pastries, scones, pies, cupcakes, cookies, tarts, signature cakes, lunch specials that can all be made gf and of course custom-designed special order cupcakes & cakes.  It was explained to me in detail how the store has separate regular & gf kitchens with equipment exclusive to that kitchen, exactly like a kosher kitchen would have.  Gluten-free foods are created first in the morning for extra steps to avoid cross-contamination.  As an added bonus, no artificial flavors or preservatives are used in any of their products.  Leftover cake does need to go into the freezer, not in the fridge!

I know gluten-free food extremely well... but other than making simple wheatless ones at home, I'm a cake idiot.
 Absolutely everything about the nature of gourmet cakes had to be explained to me.  An 8" cake is 12-15 servings, 9" is 16-22 servings, and 10" is 24-28 servings; they also offer 6" for multi-tiers if a cake over 12" is wanted or for events such as weddings.  The 9" is almost 4" high (making it like four slices of cake for two servings).  They suggested a 9" one-tier cake and didn't try to upsell, though they certainly could have.

Particularly, I needed fondant explained to me. The dictionary definition is "a thick, creamy sugar paste, the basis of many candies" or "a thick flavoured paste of sugar and water, used in sweets and icings."  The ladies at Bittersweet kindly described it to me as a very sweet, firm covering for cake or decorations such as 3D characters -- like hardened sugar. For those who are British, I'm sure you'll appreciate that I was able to fully understand by comparing it to marzipan, which they were able to confirm.  Buttercream-covered cakes start at $3 a serving and fondant-covered starts at $3.50.  This pans out to $70 for a 9" gluten-free buttercream cake with fondant designs for $75 for all fondant.

Omnomnom.

As above, customer service can swing me one way or the other and on this Bittersweet was particularly spectacular.   Despite their FAQ saying custom cake orders need a seven day minimum leadtime -- with one to three weeks suggested for events falling on a weekend or holiday -- they were able to make our cake with only a few days' notice.  My initial exploratory email was answered in in depth by one person and another spent a while with me on the phone when they were only on my initial shortlist and then rushed to calculate prices for me to place the order before I had to run to an appointment.  The original email contact worked with me at length to finish the final design prior to me not being available as well as the end-of-day ordering deadline.  They also offered to deliver the cake to my parents in Burlington early on the Sunday morning of the party, for which they went into work early, saving my parents valuable travel time to my home in central Massachusetts.

Liberty's recent obsession with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse versus her long-standing obsession with Elmo (and Sesame Street) led me to have to make a difficult choice with the design.  Since I didn't have an exact picture in my mind other than the cake being very blue due to Liberty having decided it's her favorite color, Bittersweet sent me pictures of various cakes. Although they were all beautiful, one in particular struck me.  Bittersweet used that cake as a template to come up with the perfect design for Liberty: blue buttercream with yellow and red stars and text, a huge black Mickey head on the side, and for added value four reusable Clubhouse characters delicately placed on the top and other sides of the cake.  For even more added value, they stuck two candles to the side of the box, though I had already purchased my own candles.

My kid is a Leo but I'm an indecisive Gemini.  I knew Liberty would want chocolate cake, but I was uncertain on the internal frosting.  Chocolate or vanilla?  This bakery came up with and then did a gorgeous job of alternating chocolate and vanilla frosting, which looked much more complicated than I had envisioned by their description.  Please note that many different (and more adult) flavors for cake such as lemon, strawberry and almond hazelnut and frosting flavors including coffee, pistachio and mango are offered if the basics aren't your thing.

I expected a beautiful cake, but I expected it to have the hallmarks of being gluten-free as well.  It didn't.  If I hadn't told our birthday guests that it was a gf cake, they never would have known.  The texture of the cake was moist, spongy, and rich; the buttercream was like smooth, sweet butter.  The fondant decorations tasted natural: cherry for red, licorice for black and lemon for yellow.   Nothing in either the texture or flavor was missing; Bittersweet's claim that it is the "[same] as their [glutenous] counterparts" who make equivalent glutenous high-quality artesian cakes is true.  Nothing was cloying.  This cake was both one of the loveliest and most delicious cakes I have ever had, gluten-free or not, from one of the best companies I've ever had the pleasure with which to do business.

Bittersweet is open Mondays to Fridays from 8am-3pm and by appointment on the weekends.  'Like' them on Facebook!