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A Visit to Caroline's Cakes It’s Saturday afternoon, and Caroline Reutter,
while very pretty and pulled together, is a little tired. She apologizes. She and her husband Chick got in late the night
before from a show in Pittsburgh, around 2 a.m. Now they graciously take a little time out in their Gourmet Take-It-Away store,
two storefronts away from the world headquarters of Caroline’s Cakes, just off Rt. 50 near the Bay Bridge.
Counting down to Christmas is the busy season for Caroline’s Cakes, an enterprise that’s come a long way from a family recipe for seven-layer caramel cake served at her youngest son’s christening. Caroline’s story, of how one cake has branched out to a nationally renowned company, is passing into legend. But what it reveals in its telling are several great truths of life: 1) That caramel is hard to manage properly. 2) That food is love. 3) And that business is people and people are business. Those three core truths have merged themselves into a “perfect storm” that, with Caroline’s great energy, have made her business a success. First, there are the cakes. Caroline has several available year-round from her direct mail business:
I cannot tell you anything about how the cakes are made, because I do
not know anything. It is all proprietary, especially the caramel icing. But Caroline says it’s a long painstaking process
anyway. Caramel is difficult to perfect, which possibly is how the cake earned its high status, often becoming the responsibility
— and guarded domain — of one family member.
Food is family, history and love. I’ve enjoyed Caroline’s Cakes for a while, with a renewed interest recently when my daughter broke up with her boyfriend, and was in deep need of chocolate. A quick stop to Caroline’s for a Southern Chocolate cake (seven layers of yellow cake between a rich ganache frosting) held us over, not only for the weekend, but through visiting friends as well. Therein lies the root of truth #2; food is love. A beautiful, impressive seven-layer Southern caramel cake not only elicits satisfied sighs, it also catapults people back into their family histories. The cakes are fabulous, yes, and deserve their high praise, but even more overwhelming is the packet, several inches thick, of emails and letters Caroline has received from her customers. People often take the time to thank Caroline for her cakes. Perhaps more revealing, they take the time to recall what the cake meant in their lives. Long Sunday feasts after church with the family. The time the family Labrador decided to help himself to the dessert. Or the Alzheimer’s patient, long lost in his disease, who smiles and rises from his forgetfulness, and shares a memory with his son over a coconut cakeCaroline still pauses over these letters and emails, overwhelmed by the relationship that her product can create. “Isn’t it amazing,” she wonders, “that I can be blessed to touch so many lives with this.” Giving back is something that’s important to the Reutters. Caroline carefully chooses several events a year where she will sell cakes to benefit charitable organizations.
People. People, people, people.
“I’m addicted to people,” says Caroling. “Treating people well is simply good business. The fact that my product is cake is, well…icing.” Perhaps that is why Caroline admittedly obsesses on the business of making her cakes perfect. A great deal of her business relies on direct mail and everything must be considered, from bakery into the hands of the customer. “It’s about finding good employees who share your vision, who have the spark, and it’s about connecting with people who receive and love the cakes. It’s people. Did I say that enough?” Come buy one, or more. Actually, it’s also about the cakes. You can purchase Caroline’s Cakes online and by phone. But come to the store if you can. It’s worth it just to stare at the refrigerator of lavish cupcakes, decorated cakes, and conveniently justifiable cake slices. There are also Caroline’s famous cakes, frozen. The 9-inch cakes are around $40, feed 12 to 14 and can be thawed at room temperature in two to three hours. Her shop and its goods are humorous, chosen for hospitable entertaining, and gathered personally. The cocktail napkins are a gas. She also offers, as she says, “the world’s best Vermont Cheddar and the world’s best Virginia peanuts” as well as Carolina barbecue and lunch goodies at her Gourmet Take-It-Away. The moral of the story: Let us eat cake. Caroline’s Cakes 1580 Whitehall Road (parallel to Rt. 50E before the Bay Bridge) Toll-free: 888-801-CAKE Local: 410-349-2212 Enter content here Enter content here Enter content here |
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