Zinnia's Bakehouse

BOTTOM LINE: Zinnia's did NOT deliver a "special" birthday cake as expected! Let me tell you about my experience with Zinnia's, both the good and the bad. Scheduled a birthday party for my daughter's sweet 16 on a Saturday. The Thursday the week and a half before I started to search for someone who could make a lactose free cake. Granted, I got started finding someone late so I take responsibility for that. After searching high and low I was referred to Zinnia’s from Pembroke as I wanted a sculpted cake. Got a hold of a lady at Zinnia’s after hours on that Saturday and the lady I spoke with seemed like she could do what I wanted. I had sketched a design of what I wanted and she told me to text it to her and she would let me know. Monday comes and I didn’t hear from her so I called the store and she answered. We confirmed the flavor of the cake and decided that the base of the cake would be mixed berry and the top part, a dslr camera, would be vanilla. The camera would be the part that was “vegan” and the base would be normal so my daughter could eat the top and the rest of the guests could have the base. This was nice as I didn’t have to buy another cake. She sent me a invoice for the deposit and I paid right away. The plan was for me to pick it up between 9 and 10 am on Saturday. All was good at this point. Well come Saturday things were not so well. I went to pick up the cake and couldn’t park behind the shop because it was yellow taped off, no big. So, I found a spot that was kinda close and went in. Now I must say that the lady that took my order never introduced herself. Neither did the woman that came from the back after waiting 3 minutes from walking in the door. But I digress, she brought out the cake and it was boxed up in some weird contraption of two boxes stapled into one and the top was in a A shape so I could only peek into it. I could only see the “camera” part and it looked odd but I didn’t have time as that morning was busy. I walked out and almost tripped over the sidewalk sign but at least I caught myself because the counter woman held the doors for me. I put the cake in the car and came back into the store as I wanted to make sure the social media logos were put on the cake. Some other lady popped out of the back and said yes they are on the side as they didn’t fit on the top. I guess she was the person I ordered this cake from on the phone. Okay so off to the many places I had to visit before the “event”. I get to the party a few hours later with cake in hand, time for the unboxing. This is the first time I got to see this cake fully in glory. After struggling with the box and damaging the cake in a few places we got the cake out onto the table. As you can see from the pictures, this cake is nothing like what I sketched out. The camera body was lopsided and looked more like a black “igloo” (as said by two guests) instead of a camera. The base was twice as tall as what I wanted, hence the frankenstine's monster box. There was no real decoration even though I told the baker/cake artist to take some creative liberty in decorating. She gave me only what she saw in my sketch and charged me an arm and leg to do it. No piping around the boarders, plain logos with no icing around them. Nothing that I would call "special". Let’s discuss flavor, the cake base was supposed to be mixed berry, well it tasted like vanilla so I would consider that a mess up on the bakers part. The top was to be vanilla, however it tasted of coconut, which actually was very yum, so I’m not upset about that. However, all in all I was very disappointed in this cake. I will not ask Zinnia’s to do anything for me again. The kicker is that I checked her work out online before paying her money and it looked like she had the skills to pull off this cake. At least my daughter liked it, and that was the important part. It didn’t ruin her day, but in my opinion, Zinnia’s did NOT deliver a special birthday cake. Two stars only because my daughter liked it.