If you've ever attempted to make a cake for a special occasion that varied even slightly from the traditional round-with-frosting model, you'll know that having a good cake shop on speed dial is a necessity.
Lucky us, Brisbane's best cake shops have a wealth of experience (and creativity to boot!), all of whom are more than happy to save you from last-minute decorating disasters or unexpected office birthdays.
Whether you're catering for a big bash or just want a pretty little table topper for a birthday do, we've rounded up Brisbane's best cake shops to help you out.
Brooki Bakehouse
15 Marshall Street, Fortitude Valley
You know those cakes that are all over your FYP? The cute love-heart shaped ones with the traditional piping and lil catchphrases like “too old for leo dicaprio”? Well, if you want one for your next special occasion, look no further than Brooki Bakehouse. Salted caramel, chocolate, vanilla, lemon—whatever flavour your heart desires can be made into an Insta-worthy cake with your own catchphrase. Come for the cakes, but stay for the 1 kilogram cookies.Yep, that’s right. 1 kilo of cookie goodness. We’ll take cookie over cake any day.
Cakes By Judy C
Shop 1, 227 Waterworks Road, Ashgrove
Image credit: Cakes by Judy C | Facebook
This Brisbane cake shop has won our hearts with its creative and totally Instagrammable cakes. Naked cakes, iced cakes, vintage cakes, cakes covered in hundreds and thousands, Judy C's is the place to go when you've got a special occasion and a packet mix just ain't going to cut it. Take a scroll through their Facebook page and you'll be making up excuses to eat cake, though honestly, just make it to Friday sounds like excuse enough for one of these bad boys to us.
Bella & Tortie
12/244-256 Stafford Road, Stafford
Sure, you can hit up Bella & Tortie for some very slay looking single size cakes, but you can also buy so much more than that. We’re talking cookies, crullers, slices, tarts, and cheesecakes, available at their weekly market days on Fridays and Saturdays. But the sweet treat that really takes the cake—pun intended—is their canelé. Canelés are baked custard pastries with a soft centre and a thick, dark caramelised crust, made with rum and vanilla.
Jocelyn's Provisions
Various Locations
Flourless chocolate cake. Malted chocolate layer cake. Passionfruit butter cake. Poached fruit and ricotta cake. The names alone are enough to incite salivary production. James Street's Jocelyn's are famous for their cake-creating prowess, and for good reason—these baked and frosted bad boys are the stuff of crumby dreams. Hot tip: When popping in to pick up your cake, grab a salted caramel tart to reward yourself for your organisational awesomeness.
Cake & Bake
58 Commercial Road, Newstead
Brisbane baking legend, Jocelyn Hancock is behind Brisbane bakery Cake & Bake. A haven of delicious homemade goodies in West End, all of Hancock's signature cakes and slices, savoury items are baked fresh daily, and while you can order cakes in advance, if you're serially disorganised like us, there's always plenty in the cabinet to choose from.
Floss Bakes
Online
Image credit: Floss Bakes | Instagram
If you're a fan of the baked goods which always populate Florence Cafe's counter and are always impossible to resist, then you'll love Floss Bakes. With such a delectable selection, the Camp Hill cafe's talented pastry chefs found themselves flooded with requests for cake orders–so they launched a seperate onlin cake store. Here you can order their specialty cakes for pick up—and get the whole thing to yourself instead of having to just settle for a slice.
Icing Hill
1 Commercial Road, Fortitude Valley and 329 Gardner Road, Rochedale
Got a kid that keeps choosing the hardest cakes to make out of the Women’s Weekly cake book? Screw that. Grab a cake from Icing Hill instead for a whimsical hassle-free solution. My Little Pony, Pikachu, Elsa, Minecraft, dinosaurs—name a child favourite and they’ll whack it in fondant and pop it on a cake. Don’t have a kid? Don’t fret. They can channel that creativity into adult cakes too, not to mention their signature watermelon cakes and chiffon cakes.
Flour & Chocolate
Morningside, Northgate and Redcliffe
A word to the wise, don’t go to Flour & Chocolate on an empty stomach or you’ll come out with bags upon bags of goodies to feast on. In terms of cakes, Lachlan and the team at F&C aren't messing around. If you can tear yourself away from all the other goodies on offer, get stuck into the Flourless Chocolate & Hazelnut cake, a rich and dense flourless chocolate cake made with hazelnut meal and topped with dark chocolate ganache and, oh my, toffee shards. What a time to be alive.
Vanilla Pod Specialty Cake kitchen
344 Sandgate Road, Albion
Image credit: Vanilla Pod | Instagram
After becoming so well known for their cakes that they opened a cake-specific offshoot, cakes are now Vanilla Pod's entire focus the Vanilla Pod Specialty Cake Kitchen. Specialty and bespoke cakes are the name of the game at their new Albion store. Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, baby shower cakes; name an occasion and this new Brisbane cake shop will sort you out—and yes, they'll do one of those heart-shaped vintage cakes that look so damn good on Instagram.
Cakes & Shit
233b Given Terrace, Paddington
Cakes & Shit’s delectables are not your average cakes—while other bakeries may balk at spelling out 'Happy f$#@ing birthday' on top of a cake, insulting desserts are their specialty. As well as special order cakes, you can get cupcakes topped with edible love (or hate) notes such as ‘It’s hump day. Let’s get slutty’ or ‘Good luck getting lucky’. Cakes & Shit’s treats pack some serious atittude but make up for their foul mouth by being utterly delicious.
Happy Cake Day
Delivered
When one of these epic creations gets delivered to your office, it's a Happy Cake Day indeed. Cakes covered in doughnuts, chocolate shards, meringues, macarons and whatever else you can think of can be delivered all over Brisbane (within 15kms of the CBD), so next time there's a birthday in the office and nobody wants to be responsible for cake transportation, you're saved.
Wild Canary
2371 Moggill Road, Brookfield
Image credit: Wild Canary | Website
Is it a garden or is it a cake? Actually, it's a little of both—Wild Canary's epically floral creations feature edible flowers picked from their own flourishing gardens. The only problem? The damn things look almost too pretty to eat. But, once you've finished feasting your eyes, your tastebuds will be just as delighted, with flavours like red velvet, chocolate caramel, carrot and meringue as well as the classic sponge.
Pamela's Pantry
65 Caxton Street, Petrie Terrace
Pamela, you legend. Out of this quaint Paddington cottage spills all the cakes and sweet treats your party could ever need. Pamela's cakes are traditional favourites: think chocolate sour cream cake, flourless chocolate and almond, and cherry and ricotta. Available both in round and log form, and with the option to add writing or fresh flowers, this is a Brisbane cake-catering classic. And, not only does Pammy do cakes, but she can also cater your dinner party with an epic dessert—with lemon delicious, stick date pudding, crème caramel, and apple crumble available for take away, among others.
King Of Cakes
144 Indooroopilly Road, Taringa
King of Cakes was created to bring a slice of Europe to the heart of Brisbane, and has been baking up authentic European and German creations for the celebrations of locals for more than 20 years. Over the years they've become famous for their custom cakes, with the promise that if you can dream it, they can create it.
Petal & Peach
Online
Image credit: Petal & Peach | Website
Definitely deserving of the title of creating the prettiest cakes in Brisbane, Petal & Peach hand crafts stunning wedding and celebration cakes from their kitchen in Wellington Point, and you can organise delivery to your venue or pick it up. The best part, though, is that every cake created by Petal & Peach is uniquely decorated to suit your celebration, and with flavours like gin and tonic, chocolate brownie and peanut butter and burnt caramel and espresso to choose from, you know it's going to taste delicious as well as be stunning to look at.
French Patisserie
Shop 1, 9 Morley Street, Toowong
Toowong's favourite French bakery and cake shop, French Patisserie, create cakes for special occasions, and have a range in-store to take away if you're in a rush. Their truffle gateau is something to behold, and their croquembouches are legendary on Brisbane's northside.
Smash A Cake
Online
Slicing up a sponge? Boring. Smashing a chocolate cake to smithereens to find bulk candy inside? Thrilling, exciting, delicious, totally on board. That's just what you can do with Smash A Cake's creations, which look like iced cakes but are actually chocolate shells filled with goodness. Bonus, you won't need to wash any plates after digging into one.
Want more sweet stuff? Crunch your way through Brisbane's best bakeries.
Image credit: Brookie Bakehouse