What’s your cake personality? Maybe a heavy-crumb classic like carrot or banana? Decadent like black forest or chocolate mousse? Or maybe you’ve been binging The Great British Bake Off so elaborate European creations like opera cakes and Swedish princess cakes are your thing? When it comes to cake, multiple personalities are common and encouraged—cake donuts included—especially when ordering by the slice. Here’s a fun roundup of a few local “star bakers” and go-to slices of heaven. 

For over 20 years (since 2002!) Karen’s Bakery and Café has been keeping Folsom extremely well-fed with their delicious cakes, pastries, sandwiches, coffee, and more. Their secret weapon is the carrot cake, notable because it contains no raisins (wee!) and because it’s loaded with walnuts (love that for us). And then there’s the orange marmalade blended into the cake and crowning the cream cheese mascarpone frosting. If you haven’t tried a slice, you need to; if you have, you likely went back for seconds, and thirds, like the good lord intended. 705 Gold Lake Drive, Suite 340, Folsom, 916-985-2665, karensbakery.com

Shorty’s Gelato & Bakery is beloved for their excellent gelato (hello, lemon pie), creative donuts (maple cronut, anyone?), and amazing marshmallow hot chocolate (yes, please!), but they’ve also cornered the market on truly excellent cakes. Of course, you have room for cake; after all, #dessertstomach is a thing. We have it on good authority that their black cocoa mousse cake is “the one,” and honestly, with a name like that, an explanation would be wasting precious time: just point us to the cake display and serve us a slice! 1216 Broadway, Suite A, Placerville, 530-313-8652, shortysgelatoandbakery.com

The Baker and the Cakemaker is a cozy little café where you can get the best homemade sourdough bread, rustic tarts, pastries, and cakes. Their “Cake of the Week” is the only cake available by the slice, and it’s the best kind of lottery: every week’s a winner, baby! Past specials have included banana cream pie cake, white chocolate butterscotch cake, snickerdoodle cake, pomegranate meringue cake, brown butter pear cake, plum pistachio cake, and PB&J cake, to name a few. How could there be this many amazing flavors of cake? How can we possibly contain our excitement for next week’s lottery? 1102 Lincoln Way, Auburn, 530-537-2056, thebakerandthecakemaker.com

Palette Cakes started as a home-based cottage food bakery (CBA) and in 2024 became a full-fledged brick and mortar; they’ve since inspired enough buzz to become a new favorite local bakery! Stop by for a sweet treat and check out some of their truly stunning creations in-person: six-inch cakes with beautiful sugar-flowers (pre-order only with a one-week notice), delectable tarts, light-as-air cupcakes, tasty cookies, brownies, and more. (They also do wedding cakes!). A local favorite is always the lemon meringue tart, which looks pretty as a picture and tastes WAY better. 7901 Fair Oaks Boulevard, Suite C, Carmichael, palettecakes.com

For a taste of Europe, no passport necessary, make your staycation destination Chant’el Café. With their beautiful Parisian floral motif and chic interior, every coffee meetup feels like a special occasion. Their cakes only add to the cosmopolitan fantasy, with a mouthwatering range of almost too pretty to devour European and Ukrainian delicacies. The honey cake is a must-try with a rich full-bodied honey taste that will surprise and delight (it’s not as sweet as you might think!). 1750 Prairie City Road, Suite 150, Folsom, 916-790-8395

If you’re avoiding gluten-free cakes because of past disappointments (heavy/gluey/weird), Pushkin’s Bakery & Café is here to show you that gluten-free can be delicious. Specializing exclusively in baked-to-perfection treats like cakes, pastries, scones, muffins, sweet breads, and cookies—all entirely void of gluten and dairy—their coffee cake is particularly praiseworthy. You’ll be hard-pressed to choose a favorite between blueberry cinnamon or orange cardamom; I lean toward blueberry cinnamon myself, but there’s no wrong answer. 1220 Roseville Parkway, Suite 140, Roseville, 916-886-5050; 1820 29th Street, Sacramento, 916-376-7752, pushkinsbakery.com

BAD Bakers are from the Run-D.M.C. school of baking: “…Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good.” Or in this case, bad meaning “bread and donuts.” Get it? They specialize in a wild array of creative raised donuts (with injectable fillings!), cronuts, mochi donuts, Spanish bread, sweet rolls, and their super-popular cake donuts. Is it a cake? Is it a donut? Why not both? Grab one of their Unicorn Clouds, a deliciously fluffy cake donut topped with light vanilla icing and a metric unicorn-load of sprinkles; or get a hit of coconut with Walter White. 1420 East Roseville Parkway, Suite 180, Roseville, 916-883-2253; 195 Placerville Road, Suite 100, Folsom, 916-790-8042, badbakers.com

Icing on the Cupcake specializes in, well, cupcakes: aka, the most popular love language—according to me, at least. Whether you like to keep it simple with vanilla, chocolate, snickerdoodle, or classic red velvet; or crave more complex creations like lavender lemon, smore’s, chocolate peanut butter, carrot cake, chai, or a gluten-free Boston cream, I suggest grabbing a dozen (or more) and improving your fluency in the love language of cupcakes. 6839 Lonetree Boulevard, Rocklin; 330 Palladio Parkway, Suite 2027, Folsom, 916-303-4333, icingonthecupcake.com

by Sharon Penny 
Photos by Jyo Bhamidipati ©stylereadersmedia. Palette Cakes photo by Denise Apgar Photography. The Baker and the Cakemaker photo courtesy of The Baker and the Cakemaker. Other photos courtesy of their respective companies or organizations.