11 replies to this topic

[Rail Paul]

Star-Ledger reports that the TLC star Buddy Valastros will be opening a second facility for his cake baking empire in Jersey City, adjacent to the town where the original site is located. The original bakery will remain open for retail sales and TV taping.

The "new" building was originally built for the Lackawanna Railroad and is equipped with foot thick concrete floors, direct rail access on two levels, truck bays, etc. Much of the original building was designed as drive in freezer space for food traffic.

Sometime next year, Buddy Valastro will be expanding his century-old family baking business to the Lackawanna Center, an 8-story industrial building outside the Holland Tunnel on Grove Street in Jersey City.

The "Boss" will take over 30,000 square feet on the ground floor of the Center in order to build a state-of-the-art baking facility and distribution center. A larger headquarters for the bakery's administrative offices is also in the works.

Cake Boss

[Rail Paul]

Rosie notes that the new center is now open and has a schedule of classes in cake design, fondant making, etc.

Eat more cake

[prasantrin]

Do his cakes taste like crap? They look good, but I imagine they taste like crap--all that high whatever shortening, etc.

[Daisy]

Never had one of his cakes but his cookies are out of this world. Or were the last time I had them, which might be a couple of years ago, because now that Mr. Valastro is The Cake Boss my brother has ceased to fetch the cookies to family gatherings since he refuses to stand in the always present and insanely long lines in front of the bakery.

[Daniel]

I had a customer from England come to my showroom the other day.. He was traveling with his family who all went to Hoboken for the day., from Manhattan, specifically to eat some cake.. Apparently, the show is huge in England. They were disappointed with the cakes.

[Suzanne F]

I copyedited a book of his recently. The recipes in the book were for a home cook who does not care about using the finest ingredients. Ganache was made with heavy cream and semisweet chocolate chips (shudder). Margarine in some, although not all, recipes. Rose Beranbaum he's not. Of course, the recipes used in the shop are different. But I highly doubt they use fancier ingredients.

The photos of the decorating techniques he was teaching were amazingly amateurish--esp. one of a "jungle" cake that had animals including a giraffe, an elephant, a hippo, a monkey, and so on. These were not sculptures to be proud of. And the one time I looked in the shop window, nothing I saw looked out of the ordinary for a garish rolled-fondant-using place like zillions of others. Rolled fondant is not appealing to me.


De gustibus.

[Daisy]

The cookies were typical old-fashioned Italian-American ones but really nicely done and always very fresh-tasting. Nothing fancy about them but delicious, very buttery. I wonder if they held up under the weight of the bakery's huge success.

[marauder]

My wife works a few blocks away and routinely brought stuff home prior to the show. Everything was always very good in that "neighborhood old school Italian bakery" sort of way. Within that context, you probably wouldn't be disappointed. Things like cannoli, lobster tails, etc., were always out of this world.

In one of my last projects I teamed up with another "old school Italian" baker who spent time in Carlo's bakeshop. I won't tell too many tales out of school, but LOTS of pre-fab mixes are used there. I would imagine that has only increased with the exponential growth of the bakery due to the show.

My cousin bought my nephew an "occasion cake" for his 17th birthday from them. They actually say the following to you during the cake consult..."if you want to be on TV, the cake is 'xx dollars more' and we will be sure to send at least one of the show's main characters to the delivery."

lol...ah, stardom...

[Rail Paul]

The new store in Ridgewood has a line manager who guards against over crowding.  The over crowding not expected to be a regular event however.  I'm not sure I'd bet on that.  There's been a line at the Hoboken store on each occasion I've passed by.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...=rssnyt&emc=rss

[plattetude]

The new store in Ridgewood has a line manager who guards against over crowding.  The over crowding not expected to be a regular event however.  I'm not sure I'd bet on that.  There's been a line at the Hoboken store on each occasion I've passed by.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

But it's the Hoboken location that appears on TV (at least I assume that's still generally the case).  Crowds even there certainly aren't what they were two years ago.  

 

And the Cake Boss Cafe at Port Authority, open, what, just a couple weeks?  Nearly empty every time I pass by.

[Rail Paul]

The Cake Boss has targeted Westfield as the next location.  based on the demographics so far Morristown or Montclair might be in the plans.

 

I dunno.  Sems to me the guy may have used up about 14 minutes of his 15...

 

http://www.nj.com/en...buddy_vala.html

[Suzanne F]

I've got a friend in Westfield, but she keeps kosher so I doubt she'd be a customer (even though he mostly uses shortening).

 

He's got a "real" cookbook out, you know: Cooking Italian with the Cake Boss. I am happy to say that unlike his "baking" book, I had nothing to do with this one. From the looks of it, it's for people who think most Italian food is red sauce and baked ziti. So the 15-minute meter may have been restarted last November when it came out.