Triple Decker Emoji Cake

Just so you know, we're a small business. By small, I really do mean small. There's me (founder/head chef/ creative director), my business partner (who also happens to be my husband - yes, we're a family business), our sales/customer service manager, two bad-@$$ bakers including myself and a driver. We literally do everything ourselves - from designing and maintaining our website, creation of new products, packaging, marketing, and of course the production for our online cake orders and Selfridges cakes too.

Selfridges Cakes

We used to have a shop. It was nice. But we closed it in order to focus on what we knew best - ecommerce. Simply put, shop didn't make sufficient profit, but online does, and we had to cut the fat to get to the cream if you get my drift, no matter how difficult a decision it was. While doing that we had to become smaller, leaner and much more efficient. As much of a humbling experience it was, we're much happier and healthier focusing on the stuff we actually like to focus on - the creative fun stuff (like making amazing cakes), and ultimately offering the best service we possibly can.

Ella Masters Illustration

As a general rule of thumb, most interactions we have are lovely, yet there are a few that are awkward. I guess because we are so small the awkward ones "stick" as opposed to say if we were BT/Virgin/Tesco etc. For instance, never had we had a situation where a customer requested to cancel a cake (for no fault of our own - we just could not offer a premium delivery service without associated costs and have our limitations as every small business does), had the item's full refund agreed as per usual cancellation policy with no questions asked, yet been subjected to a hissy about the "service"...until today. I've gotta say, I've not made cake a lot of times before and this is the strangest! Kinda reminded me of THIS scene from FRIENDS :)

ROSS MEME

I guess the awks interactions really stick out because we are so used to dealing with such happy people. It's also such a joy when we hear from our old customers from the shop, such as Jessica, who recently ordered a bespoke Emoji cake for her daughter's 9th birthday. Not only was making it so much fun, but to then receive THIS feedback blew our minds:

"I'd been wanting to try an Anges de Sucre cake and decided to order one for my daughter's 9th birthday. We requested an 'emoji themed' cake and team member Mary was incredibly helpful over email in coming up with customizations to play up the theme as much as possible. When the cake arrived I hid it from my daughter to surprise her at her party but I took a peek...I was floored at how awesome it looked! It was artfully covered with 'emoji' goodies--donuts, cookies and the cutest yellow macarons with hand drawn emoji faces. When the cake came out at the party you will never have seen a more excited group of 9-10 year olds and best of all my daughter gasped "that is the best cake ever!" Not only did it look amazing it tasted divine. Best chocolate cake I've had in a long time. Let me also mention how much I appreciated the beautiful thinness of the outside layer of multicolored buttercream. Maybe this is silly but some cakes are covered in globs of buttercream and somehow this cake was perfectly shaped with no stray crumbs in just a single, thin layer. Makes for a slice to be eaten in its entirety. No leftovers here! Thank you so much to the talented team at Anges de Sucre for the best cake I could've ordered for my daughter's birthday party!"

Being the small business that we are, all of us high-fived each other. It was truly a team effort, from the point of ordering, through the bakers, till the driver, and the sweet memories of the experience remains with us for much longer after the cake has been cut and devoured. In fact, I'll remember it forever because we then created another version of the cake after Cadence's cake!