Long before birthday candles, cake has served the drama. Its family tree stretches back to ancient Egypt, where bread came sweetened with honey. Marie Antoinette almost certainly never told anyone to “let them eat cake,” despite centuries of very bad PR, but cake still found its way into plenty of royal spectacle. By Queen Victoria’s 1840 wedding, one of the royal cakes weighed about 300 pounds.
Modern Phoenicians may be short on crowns, but we have no trouble eating like royalty. Around the Valley, butter cakes fit in the palm of your hand, olive oil layers hide beneath clouds of mascarpone, and a 75-year-old red velvet recipe still anchors a family bakery. German Chocolate makes an appearance too, although the cake has nothing to do with Germany and everything to do with an American recipe.
Check out these 10 shops, which bring all the right kind of sweet, sweet drama.
Butta Cakes
Butta Cakes began with a challenge. Founder Perry Hilton was bartending when someone told him he couldn’t make a butter cake better than Mastro’s. Hilton, according to his wife, Amanda Folino, was exactly the kind of person who would hear that and head for the kitchen. “And he did. He actually did,” Folino said.
The couple started baking from home, with Hilton creating the recipes and Folino decorating before opening the North Scottsdale shop around the beginning of the pandemic. Hilton has since passed away, and Folino continues to bake the recipes the couple created together.
“I still feel him here, and I’m passionate about the bake,” she said. Now, more than 25 flavors fill out the menu, from German Chocolate and Key Lime to S’mores and the candy bar-inspired Buttanicker. Folino said Red Velvet is one of the hardest flavors to keep stocked, and chocolate varieties disappear as quickly. The bakery also recently added a Gluten-Free Chocolate Brownie cake. 20801 N. Scottsdale Rd., Suite 107, Scottsdale, buttacakes.com
Red Velvet Recipes
Myesha Harris has a red velvet recipe with considerably more history than most of us have family heirlooms. In fact, she said Red Velvet Recipes grew from her family’s love of baking and her grandmother’s recipe that’s been passed down for 75 years. The bakery makes its desserts from scratch, but the signature Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting remains the obvious first move.
“It’s the cake that introduced so many customers to our bakery and continues to be our most requested favorite,” Harris said.
The South Phoenix bakery celebrates its third anniversary in September, and Harris is also planning an inaugural community event with a familiar name: Let Them Eat Cake. Bakers will bring eight-inch cakes to share and compete for honors including Best Decorated Cake, Most Unique Flavor, and Best Red Velvet Cake. 6828 S. Central Ave., Phoenix, redvelvetrecipes.com
Hunnie Butter
Pastry chef Jasmine Frank, along with her husband and business partner Jonathan Wilson, opened the bakery in 2023 after years in the food industry. Today, the pair keeps the pastry case filled with homemade cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes, cookies, and rotating weekly specials.
For example, the namesake Hunnie Butter Cake gets especially decadent, layering brown butter cake with brown sugar Swiss buttercream and of course, honey caramel. Recent cupcake flavors have wandered from PB&J to Lemon Berry and Suga Swirl, while the Sock-It-to-Me pound cake brings butter pecan into the mix. The shop recommends warming that one before digging in.
Carrot cake and chocolate cake have also ranked among the bakery’s biggest sellers, but part of the fun is seeing what Frank and Wilson decided to make that week. Get there early. Hunnie Butter is only open Thursday through Saturday, and popular treats have been known to vanish quickly. 4700 N. 12th St., Suite 122, Phoenix, hunniebutter.com
Cake Shop by LGO Hospitality
We have a problem when walking into Cake Shop: we already know what we want, and then we see everything else. Our usual weakness is the Baby Old Timer, a bite-sized version of LGO’s rich chocolate Old Timer without the sweet cream filling. It’s thick, fudgy and so moist that the “baby” part mostly makes it easier to justify eating another one.
Then there’s the Gluten-Free Chocolate Mousse Salted Caramel Cake. Chocolate cake, airy chocolate mousse, salted caramel, dark chocolate ganache, chocolate glaze and shards somehow pile together without becoming heavy. The same cake also turns up for dessert at Chelsea’s Kitchen, and after tasting it, we understand why.
The Arcadia shop comes from LGO Hospitality, so the cake case sits alongside pies, cookies, cheesecakes, Baby Cakes, and enough candles, cards, and party supplies to rescue anyone who remembered the cake but forgot literally everything else. 4410 N. 40th St., Suite 6, Phoenix, lgocakeshop.com
Too Sweet Cakes
Too Sweet Cakes started with Shelbi Geyer in Bend, Oregon, in 2016 and has since made its way south, with locations in Arizona and another headed to Paradise Valley in late 2026.
The cake menu is a mix of fun and elegant creations. Lemon Raspberry sits beside Double Chocolate, Unicorn Cake, Salted Caramel, Espresso Crunch, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Cherry Chip. Gluten-free and vegan options are available as well.
But where to start? The Lemon Raspberry is an easy pick when Arizona summer calls for something bright. Chocolate Peanut Butter goes in the opposite direction, but in the best possible way. Too Sweet also handles custom cakes and weddings, but you don’t need a seating chart and 150 guests to justify stopping by. 4050 E. Cotton Center Blvd. #65, Phoenix; and 1727 E Pecos Rd., Gilbert, toosweetcakes.com
Asahi Bakery
Asahi Bakery has long been the answer for Phoenix cake lovers who prefer a lighter touch. After all, not everyone wants frosting sweet enough to hurt a tooth. Its Fresh Fruit Cake pairs soft cake with fruit and cream, creating the kind of birthday cake made for people who insist they “aren’t really dessert people.”
In this unassuming, casual neighborhood bakery, the menu branches out into Cappuccino Cake, Young Coconut Cake, a seasonal Mocha Cake, and Strawberry Shortcake. Green Tea and Taro cakes can also be specially ordered, while low-sugar, nondairy, and rice-flour options make the bakery unusually accommodating. 6056 N. 16th St., Phoenix, asahi-bakery.com
Silver Rose Bakery
Silver Rose can make the elaborate celebration cake, but with a variety of flavors on the menu, you may want to order multiple. Take the Lemon Raspberry Cake, which layers lemon cake with vanilla-raspberry filling and topped with fresh raspberries and lemon slices. The Mint Chocolate takes inspiration from the little green-wrapped treat we all somehow find room for after dinner, pairing chocolate cake with fluffy crème de menthe frosting.
Then there’s the German Chocolate. Fun fact, despite the name, German Chocolate Cake isn’t German at all. Samuel German developed a sweet baking chocolate in the U.S. in the 1850s, and a Texas cake recipe using it exploded in popularity about a century later. Somewhere along the way, German’s Chocolate Cake lost its apostrophe and gained an entirely imaginary nationality.
For anyone craving something less classic, the larger menu also ventures into Lemon Blueberry Honey Lavender, Pink Champagne, Pistachio Cake, and Pumpkin Spice Cookie Butter. 2814 W. Bell Rd., Suite 1451, Phoenix, silverrosebakery.com
Banham’s Cheesecake
Yes, cheesecake counts. Banham’s built its lineup from a family cheesecake recipe designed around a sweet-tangy filling and crisp graham cracker crust. Traditional, Strawberry, and Blueberry Crumble keep things classic, while Banana Pudding, Cookie Butter, and Coconut Cream start pushing the definition of restraint.
Our eyes went straight to the Tiramisu Cheesecake, which folds coffee-soaked ladyfingers into the equation, uses espresso from locally roasted Press Coffee, and finishes everything with whipped cream and cocoa. Banham’s also serves Press Coffee drinks in the shop, so pairing cheesecake with hot brew is completely possible, and probably, advisable. 2836 E. Indian School Rd., Suite A3, Phoenix, banhamscheesecake.com
Urban Cookies Bakeshop
Do not be distracted by the word “cookies.” Husband-and-wife owners Brady and Shaun Breese started Urban Cookies in 2005, when both were still in their 20s and working corporate jobs. Brady’s love of cooking and baking came from his mother, while Shaun saw entrepreneurship as a chance to learn how to lead. These days, Brady still creates pastries by hand and from scratch, while Shaun focuses on growing the people behind them.
The cake menu is small for a reason. Urban Cookies offers just two flavors, both as naked cakes with the sides left unfrosted so every layer shines on display. The Chocolate Birthday Cake stacks chocolate cake with chocolate-ganache cream cheese frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Cult favorite, the Churro Cake layers vanilla cake, cream cheese frosting, and cinnamon sugar. Bonus, three times a year the Churro Cake returns in cupcake form, where Shaun Breese said it becomes the bestseller.
Speaking of cupcakes, come early September the cupcake case shifts into fall with flavors including pumpkin, caramel, apple, and chocolate pecan. Cookies may have gotten top billing in the name, but cake clearly knows how to get attention here. 2325 N. 7th St., Phoenix; and 8776 E. Shea Blvd., Suite 108, Scottsdale, urbancookies.com
the Dinersaur
The Dinersaur refuses to let its pastry case get repetitive. We’ve popped into the little Thomas Road shop a few times, and what makes it so fun is how much the offerings shift with the season. Strawberries take over when they’re at their best, squash and pumpkin show up in fall, and a random summer visit might uncover something like banoffee cups loaded with banana, chewy toffee and Valrhona chocolate.
Whole cakes are available for preorder, including the Chocolate Olive Oil Cake, a fluffy chocolate cake layered with dark chocolate pudding, mascarpone cream and cookie crunchies. The ForeverElizabeth sounds like a cake designed specifically to test our breakfast boundaries as it comprises cinnamon olive oil cake, espresso whipped cream, and oatmeal cookies. No raisins, a detail the bakery considered important enough to clarify and we fully support.
The menu also includes Carrot Cake, German Choco, Tres Leches, and rotating seasonal fruit in the Seasonal Harvest cake. 1339 W. Thomas Rd., Phoenix, thedinersaur.com
