Since 2005, Hotcakes Bakes has been a hot spot for some of the tastiest baked goods in Los Angeles. Winner of Food Networks 2009 “Cupcake Wars,” Hotcakes has exceeded most expectations of what started off as a small cupcake shop. Thousands of pastries and cupcakes were shared at this year’s Grammy Award ceremony giving everyone a little treat to go home with. Owner, Elfie Weiss, originally a Parisian, moved to America with a passion for baking, singing, and acting. Weiss always loved the American cupcake, which is now being embraced globally, and wanted to open up a place of her own, with an outlet to experiment and have fun!
“Cupcakes are an icon of American baking and it represents the true reminiscence of childhood -- that is what baking is about to me,” Weiss told me during an afternoon of her serving me an abundance of cupcakes. She really feels that baking incorporates emotions and feelings of warmth, happiness, and innocence -- and eating a cupcake makes you feel all of that at once! She is very dedicated to having her customers feel that same way too. Everything is baked by scratch, fresh daily. The cupcakes are all extremely tasty, moist, light, and not too sweet. They taste like freshly baked cupcakes with fresh icing…yumm.
The winning cupcake of Food Networks “Cupcake Wars” was the Tres Leches with Spicy Mango and Horchata Whipped Cream. The vanilla cake is soaked with cream, milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk. The horchata whipped cream is made from horchata, which is traditional Mexican cinnamon rice milk and is then topped with a spicy mango. There are many flavors so it is a complex cupcake but all the flavors complement one another. It is quite remarkable!
Chocolate Raspberry Mousse cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes with a raspberry mousse, which is separated by a layer of ganache. This cupcake was super moist, tangy and sweet. So good!
Snickerdoodle is the latest cupcake addition. It is a light cinnamon cake with a cream cheese frosting topped with cinnamon sugar that adds texture and that extra bite you look for in a snickerdoodle.
Boston Cream Pie is a vanilla cake, pastry cream filling, chocolate ganache and sweetened whipped cream topping. Amazing.
Yummy Cupcake is a moist chocolate cake with a whipped cream filling, ganache topper and a whipped cream swirl on top.
Other staple cupcake flavors are vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, chocolate chip, strawberry, coconut, lemon yellow, lemon chocolate, cookies and cream, toffee, carrot, peanut butter, mocha, and mint. Hotcakes Bakes also has many other fresh pastries that are incredible.
As a new transplant to the Los Angeles area, Hotcakes is a place I will definitely become a regular at. The quality, appearance, and taste are exactly what I look for in a bakery. I also love that it is a pink building and you can watch all the girls bake and ice all the cupcakes as you order them.
4119 South Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90066
Mon-Sat 9am-7pm.
Sun 10am-6pm
info@hotcakesbakes.com
310.397.2324
Images all by Renee Faris for Cupcakes Takes the Cake.
Comments