Cakes By The Lake

I highly recommend you stop in and visit Don the Baker at Cakes by the Lake.
Wedding cupcakes: I could not believe how beautiful the cake turned out but what really surprised me was how delicious the cupcakes were while being so beautiful. We had a mixture of chocolate cupcakes and marble cupcakes with chocolate ganache filling. The cake was super moist and tasty. The filling was smooth and yummy as well. He delivered the cake to the Heavenly village venue with plenty of time before guests arrived.
He was nice enough to take on my cake order less than a week to the date and even set up an ad hoc tasting so I could pick my flavors only 2 days before the wedding. This guy is flexible for his customers not to mention funny and cool to talk to.
The bonus– come back a year after your wedding and an anniversary cake is free!
Croissants: omg the ham and cheese croissant blew my mind. It’s delicious cold or heated up but don’t wait too long to eat it! The almond croissant was also yummy but my favorite was definitely the ham and cheese!
Bagels: we had the pesto and asiago cheese bagel. The bagel was 2 days old before we ate it but even then toasted it was so tasty! Definitely stop in if you like bagels.
Overall the looks of the place doesn’t do justice to just how good Don the baker is at what he does. Give it a try and I swear you’ll be hooked.

Delicious and awesome wedding cake! We were very happy with the look and tasted great! All our guest love the cake also. We cant wait for our free top tier on on 1 year anniversary!

Really Don? I call on Wednesday to order some pies for Saturday and you say «no problem». I show up Saturday morning and you say «they will done by 4“I come back at 4 and get the «I didn’t have ingredients» then you chuckled. Total dick maneuver –that’s buddy.

I went here on a long shot hoping for a premade cake, which seems like it’s not something they typically have. I left with a bag of day-​old muffins for all of $ 2, and they were AMAZING. We heated them slightly and shared them and the flavor was outstanding. What a deal! I will stop by again for sure! (And next time I will call ahead to reserve a cake!)

We had a little bit of a rough start with getting the order in but the cake was absolutely darling and totally delicious!

Don was great getting my wedding cake to the restaurant. The cake was ordered 2 days before the wedding and he made it happen! The cake was so good!!! I will be back next year to have a 6″ made for my one year!!! Thanks don!

Don is awesome! Cakes by the Lake created the perfect birthday cake for my 2 yrs old son!!!

Had a chocolate raspberry tart. It was amazing! Owner is a pastry chef with many years of experience. Well worth the stop!

I got a beautiful birthday cake here, with lovely 3D flowers. This little shop makes amazing and delicious cakes, pies, pastries, bagels and more. If you are in SLT, definitely worth a stop.

Don «The Baker» made our daughter’s wedding cake for her ceremony on May 30, 2015. The cake was beautiful, tasty, and fairly priced. Don was a pleasure to work with!

Don was recommended to us by our wedding venue and I’m so glad that he made our cake. He has great prices and the cake was exactly how I wanted to be. I’m very picky and detail oriented and all the pictures I showed Don on how to make our cake, he exceeded my expectations. He even delivered the cake to our reception. You can really tell he loves what he does! Highly recommended Cakes by the lake!!!

Don is great! I sent him a list of flavors I wanted for my cupcakes and he made it happen. They were delivered on time and the guests LOVED them. The #1 hit at my wedding were the S’mores cupcakes. YUM. Thanks so much for making delicious cupcakes!

I called just a few days before the weekend that we were going to be in South Tahoe. Don was great and had no problems having a cake ready! I told him what I wanted and he went above and beyond with what he created! AND the price was incredible! Thanks so much!

We ordered 3 dozen bagels a few days in advance for a weekend outing with a group of friends. When we went to pick them up at 9:00 that day, no one was at the shop. It was closed! We called from the parking lot and left our number and never received a call back. Was Don in the hospital? You’d think his assistant would at least follow up on phone messages. But, nothing! That was about 3 weeks ago. I was pissed, but going to drop it. Then I was talking to my neighbor and heard a similar story, but about her wedding cake! I could hardly believe it! There is no excuse for that. I try to support local businesses, but I will never have any good thing to say about Don or his business.

They made our wedding cake for our wedding on 6÷28÷14. It was just fabulous! It tasted as good as it looked. Our guests just raved about it and many went back for seconds!

We wanted to have a tasting of our wedding cakes before ordering, but Cakes By the Lake doesn’t offer this. So, we went by the shop on a Saturday and the very pleasant female employees answered all our questions and let us sample some frostings and fillings, which were fresh and delicious that day.
On the wedding day, the cakes, one chocolate and one vanilla, looked odd (I’ll see if I can attach a photo so you can see for yourselves. Shiny, lopsided — odd). I didn’t mind the look so much since the taste was what we really cared about. I had a bit of the vanilla at the reception, and it was just OK. The whipped toppings were flat and the butter-​cream filling had a funny aftertaste; I couldn’t finish it. I gave it the benefit of a doubt, and decided my taste buds might have been off due to my wedding-​day nerves. Hoping it would taste better when we were relaxed, we took a big chunk of both cakes home with us to eat at our leisure.
Yuck. The chocolate cake not only didn’t LOOK chocolate (inside and out were light tan colored), it didn’t TASTE chocolate at all. In addition, I tasted a mocha flavor in one of the fillings, which we definitely didn’t order since I hate anything coffee flavored. Finally, both cakes were heavy, dry, crumbly and flavorless. Yuck, yuck, yuck. We threw it away. I doubt I’ve evern thrown even a piece of cake away in my life!
It now makes sense why so many pieces of cake were left at our reception with only one bite taken out of them…
Given that we paid over $ 200 per cake, we were expecting something delicious — moist, light, and fresh. I’ve honestly had better, MUCH better, cake from a supermarket! For a wedding in Tahoe, avoid Cakes By the Lake at all costs. I wish we had picked up some cakes at Costco!

I havent had his cakes yet and that’s the reason why im denying one star, because I cannot honestly judge those yet.
As for his pastry it is wonderful. I love the blueberry scones. The place is charming for what it is, and it’s clear this is a one man show. He’s sweet and considerate and deffinately made us feel very welcome in his shop.
The only downside is that it is very small and doesnt offer a place to sit inside and enjoy the wonderful smell and taste of his food.

DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR BUSINESS!!!
Don, the owner is Extremely Rude!!!
DON spoke bad about other local bakers, and cussed while trying to get an image of my vision.
Don, the owner was takin my order for a 2 Layer, fondont pistachio & chocolate cake and he actually cussed at me and hung on me when I asked if he could honor my online discount.
I could not believe it!!! He may be good at his work, however he is not good with people. I understand he is a one man show… But as a business owner, especially in Lake Tahoe customers/​patrons should be somewhat treated with respect.
NEGATIVE STARS!!!

Okay, I agree that Don is a nice guy! I support our small business owners in town BUT… the past three cakes I’ve ordered from Cakes By The Lake have been, quite honestly, TERRIBLE!
We went to Don after our favorite bakery, Suger Pine Bakery, closed. Don’s shop was close to us so we gave him a try. Each has been worse than the one before… dry, unflavorful, and on one layer cake, the top just slid off when cut! The most recent cake left an unpleasant «film» in everyone’s mouth… yuck. These were special event cakes and we were very disappointed.
His small items such as pastries seem fine. I would discourage anyone from ordering a cake, though.
From now on, I’ll pay a little more and go to «Cork and More» or even Raley’s Supermarket bakery! Also, Flour Girl Wedding Cakes did our wedding cake last year and she was amazing! Sorry Don, but I’m done. Good luck to you.

I found Cakes by the Lake through Unilocal,and then decided to order a birthday cake after checking out Facebook photos and their website. I should preface this by saying that I live in SF, but was planning a birthday party in Tahoe that weekend.
I ordered a cake over the phone a few days in advance from Don. The process was simple and easy. I ordered a chocolate cake with mousse cream filling, vanilla butter cream frosting and a Tahoe theme. I picked the cake up and it looked great. Simple and elegant. More importantly, it was delicious!