The Cakery at Jefferson Market

Ordered a cake for my husband’s graduation and it was amazing– especially the frosting. It was a tuxedo flavor with peanut butter filling and a white frosting, and all of it was delicious. The service was friendly and helpful. I’m actively looking for excuses in the recent future to get another cake.

Tried the Bailey’s cake and it was amazing! Also have had their chocolate raspberry cake and some muffins — all of their baked goods are excellent. Just wish they had an espresso machine/​more drinks. They could draw a lot more customers with a full-​service café.

I didn’t even like chocolate cake until I tried this one. Ganache, buttercream — what else is there to say? My husband loved it too! The service was excellent also — my cake was made with care. When I went to pick it up, it had a crack in the ganache but before I could even look at it Mary told me about it, sat me down with a complementary coffee and delicious scone and fixed it with a whole new ganache while I waited– and gave me a discount without me even asking! She is a very sweet lady who cares about her business and making her customers happy. This neighborhood is lucky to have such a great local bakery! I’ll definitely be ordering more cakes here.

Enjoy the neighborhood feel and being able to walk or easily park for brunch. Ate every last bite.

Never prepared for my husband’s birthday as it is what I believe to be smack dab in the middle of my concept of the holiday season, (Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day), I decided this year that I would take it slow. Taking it slow meant first starting with a cake.
I found out about this adorable little spot on my way to a friend’s for a project and realized I had heard about it before, but didn’t realize what it was until now. I called just a few days before the big day as the website says give them about 3 days notice and when I arrived I had this perfect, and very large cake called «Dinner at an Italian Restaurant.» This cake is described as: This tiramisu inspired cake boasts four moist yellow cake layers bathed in a coffee and Kahlua wash. Shaved chocolate nestles between each of the layers with Cream Cheese Icing. A cake for about 15 people was about $ 50 and it’s the cake that keeps on giving. Though not really my cup of tea, people really seem to like it.
It was ready when I arrived with a message of love and Happy birthday on top, but because it was on the massive side there wasn’t a lid for the cake box, so if you ever find yourself in that predicament make sure to make a good space in your car or be prepared to walk around with an open cake box.
The shop isn’t open very long on Saturday with hours just between 10AM — 1PM. Nevertheless, it was full of patrons families, friends, and couple alike happily branching away. I’m interested to return for some brunching as it’s been made clear that cake is something they excel at.
If you’re ever in need of a cake for an occasion, I think this place is a lovely, local option.

This is review is for the sliced cake only, or more specifically, for the sliced strawberry pink champagne
5 stars for the reasonable price;
4 stars for the light and slightly tart strawberry reduction
3 stars for the not-​at-​all airy and light cake body. It is moist, somewhat, but dense and heavy. :(
2 stars for the hard and heavy buttercream.
sigh.

We searched high and low for a place that would make a tasty, nice looking sugar free cake, and Mary at Jefferson Market exceeded our expectations! It was lovely and reasonably priced. We had non-​sugar-​free sheet cakes served to our guests as well. Everyone said our cake was tasty.

It’s not often that I rave about a baked good. They’re either too sweet, dense, dry, or leave something else to be desired, but this is the best scone I’ve had in a long time. I’m eating my cherry scone right now, and it has a perfect slightly crunchy exterior with a beautiful moist inside. It’s not too sweet. It is absolute perfection.

Love their caramel shortbread bars. You can get pieces of their torte cakes for $ 4.00 a piece. My favorites are the chocolate bump cake as well as the Lemon Pound cake with buttercream and blueberries. Sandwiches are o.k. but I’ve only taken the premade ones to go. I’ve never ordered and ate there.

I hate to start the day off with a bad Unilocal review, particularly for a local institution, but I don’t much like starting out with a bad bagel either.
And Jefferson Market failed the «bagel test.» They failed it badly. A bagel is, generally speaking, a simple thing for a restaurant to offer up: put a few varieties out on a cake plate, offer a couple of topping options, slice it, toast it, shmear it, wrap it up and BAM! there’s your bagel. But within that simplicity lie a number of choices that I think reveal a lot about an establishment.
The bagels themselves were fine, nothing notable. I don’t expect most places to make their own, so as long as they source them from a reputable local bagel maker, it’s all good. These looked like Barry Bagels or something similar, but who knows. They were just *meh*. Of the four that were available, 3 were plain and one was a subpar lightly-​sprinkled everything bagel. For some reason, the bagels out on display were pre-​sliced, which doesn’t make sense to me — they’ll just go stale faster. I would think they could just slice them when they’re ordered. And you know, this is a bakery too, so a venture into daily bagel production might be a good thing.
Where the JM really took a wrong turn was the cream cheese. I went there expecting (since it’s a boutiquey business specializing in higher-​end munchables) a big shmear of fresh, good-​quality cream cheese. What I got instead was a 1-​oz. pre-​packaged plastic disc of off-​brand dreck. It didn’t taste good, it didn’t look good, it didn’t cover both halves of my bagel, and it unnecessarily created two pieces of landfill garbage. Fail.
What’s more, they didn’t offer to put the cream cheese on the bagel — instead handing me a plastic knife (another unnecessary hunk of plastic for the landfill) and had me put it on myself. This again made no sense to me. I wasn’t asked if I wanted it to go or to eat in-​house, or if I might want the bagel on a plate with a real butter knife.
At the same time, I ordered two plain bagels to bring back to people in the office. These were put in a bag along with multiple pieces of paper used to handle and «package» the bagels. More unnecessary paper waste.
The price was fine, akin to what you’d pay at a gas station. Unfortunately the bagel and cream cheese were also of gas station quality. Which would be fine, if the JM were a gas station. I know that bagels are not their specialty, but to me, if the choices they made in the simple act of serving up a bagel are indicative of their overall commitment to quality, flavor, and environmentally-​sound food service practices, a one-​star review is all I can reasonably give.
I’ll go back in a month or so and update my review based on my second visit, if it merits updating.

AMAZING FOR WEDDING CAKE! Mary at Jefferson market baked my cake and did a wonderful job. The cakes at Jefferson are very high quality (they use butter not shortening or crisco) but the price is much more reasonable than some of the other hight quality bake shops in the area. The best part is, Mary meets with you and she is the one that bakes the cake and makes sure it turns out exactly how you want. My wedding cake was beautiful, and it tasted so good!

I’ve now had 3 occasions to enjoy The Cakery’s special-​order cakes… and they were all wonderful. Perhaps I should try the in-​shop slices again. Perhaps they’re using more flavoring ingredients? Whatever the secret is, it’s working. I still don’t like the sandwiches, but the shop isn’t called «The Sandwicher» so it’s all good. Thank you Cakery!

The cake is to die for. They are extremely large – easily shared. They have a cake rewards program, after 5 pieces you get one free. Anyway, the cakes have wonderful flavor and are in unique combinations (strawberry champagne, anyone?) A lot of them have a crumb layer between the outside on the outer layer of frosting that gives an excellent salty/​crunch contrast to the sweetness of the frosting. I have never had a bad piece of cake here.

Cute, local business with a very friendly owner.
The cakes and treats all looked amazing, but as usual i cannot get myself to spend $ 4 for a piece of cake (even though here I really wanted to)
I chose a lemon bar and a cake ball and both were very very good!
Still $ 4 for a lemon bar, even though it was nice and tart, great shortbread, coconut and almonds on top, really a delight, just a bit pricey.
The cake ball at almost $ 2 I got just to sample their cake and chocolate was red velvet, nice fluffy and moist with good chocolate coating.
It Suprised me when she told me the balls were all different depending on what cake bits they use and she didn’t know which one i would get.
Glad I liked it.
Nice place, tastewise a full 5 stars, just the price takes one away and would keep me from going back.

I went in for a desssert for a special dinner and chose champagne cake. The cake was so moist and the frosting was perfection. The whole family shared one generous piece. WOW. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger
— I’ll be back.

I looooooooooooooooooooove Jefferson Market’s cakes and everyone at my wedding agrees. In fact, people loved my cake so much that there was none left for me to take home. To add insult to injury, the waitstaff at the venue took my slice away before I was finished eating it! Ah, but I digress. There is a reason that the Cakery at Jefferson Market was voted a 2010, 2009 and 2008 local Knot pick for wedding cakes.
Mary is extremely easy to work with and is really able to make your cake exactly how you want it. Also, the cake is extremely reasonably priced. Unlike other places in Ann Arbor, which charge upwards of $ 6.50 a slice, the Cakery at Jefferson Market charges around $ 2.50 (maybe less) per slice, which is a steal when you are looking at wedding cakes.
We made an appointment for a consultation and cake tasting to see if we were interested. The consultation and tasting was completely free even though we had not decided that we wanted to buy a cake from them or put down a deposit yet. Mary sat down with us for an hour or more going through different possibilities and trying to figure out our preferences. After figuring out how we wanted the cake to look, Mary brought out a tray of cake flavors for us to try. They were all spectacular and we decided on a 4 layer cake with alternating chocolate cake and vanilla pound cake layers. The icing was butter cream and the fillings alternated between berry, chocolate mousse, and Irish cream chocolate mousse.
Mary sent us home with the leftover cake from the tasting, pictures and sketches of what we discussed, and pricing information for the flavors and size that we wanted. She let us know that all that was required for her to save the date to make our wedding cake, was a 25% (I think) deposit. We called back the next day saying we would drop off a check on Monday.
There were a few issues with when the cake would be dropped off and where, but the venue, Mary and my florist ended up working it out without involving me. It ended up working out fine. The two things that I got the most compliments on from my wedding were the cake and the band, and people still talk about it!
Definitely go with the Cakery at Jefferson Market if you want a memorable wedding.

I make a special trip here on my way to the airport to go home to CA to pick up a pound or two of Grumpy Monkey Coffee and a sweet treat. I am so lucky that my best friend from high school only lives a block away. I get to see him and grab some awesome coffee if I am not in a rush to catch a flight!

One of the best parts of living on the West Side. I’m a big fan of the Black Magic cake, which I confess to buying by the slice ($ 3.50; Zingermans’ charges $ 6!) when I’m having a bad day. Or when I want to make a good day even better. :-)
(Note: the money you save by not buying Zingermans’ might need to go toward buying bigger pants.)
I’ve also sampled the sandwiches (a little pricey, but the house-​made lemon pepper chips are awesome) and the Sunday brunch, and strongly recommend the latter… if you can get a table. On weekdays, the place is pretty empty, and if you can bear the top 40 radio (which I’m sure is energizing for bakers who spend all day on their feet; it’s just annoying when you’re trying to read), you can camp out there for hours with Mighty Good coffee and free wifi. Try to get out by 3 p.m., though, as the kids from the elementary school next door will come dashing in for cupcakes. Alternatively, head to the lovely garden ’round back.
The two primary bakers are wonderful, and I really admire their commitment to offering local products like Guernsey milk, Ed’s Bread, and the hyper-​local Melissa’s Soups. They’re also really committed to recycling, which is a huge plus in my book.
One final note: Jefferson Market made a fabulous three-​layer, chocolate, buttercream, and cherry cake for a conference I helped plan. They did so on fairly short notice (though it’s best to order at least two or three weeks out!), for an extremely reasonable price, and with cute decorations that represented the theme of the conference. We absolutely plan on ordering from them again!

Delicious cakes! I had a chocolate cake with strawberry filling and it was SO moist. The chocolate flavor was dominate with a subtle strawberry flavor in the background. Really good!
The food is so-​so. There is nothing really special about their sandwiches. HOWEVER, their Sunday brunch is worth checking out. Their pancakes are amazing! They have that home-​cooked-​goodness taste! YUM!!! I had the blueberry pancakes with homemade lemon curd. The pairing of the lemon curd with the blueberries was PERFECT!
The blueberry pancakes were a special. Now, I think they have Michigan peach pancakes and I cannot wait to try them out!

The food was good. They serve brunch now, which is always welcome… and their pancakes tasted fresh and were portioned well. But the hot cocoa seemed to be out-​of-​the-​box, and the special was overpriced.
My main gripe is that I was overcharged for an item, due to a mis-​marking on the menu (the menu said 80 cents, i was charged $ 1.99). I brought the mistake to the cashier’s attention and she said she fixed it, but I went home and checked my bank statement later, I had been charged even more!
So I guess go there for Sunday brunch, but watch the bill closely.