Messing up cake is hard. If you do eat a disappointing cake, however, it can be a life-altering experience that makes you feel like a deep trust has been broken with the universe. After all, if you can’t trust cake to be delicious, what can you trust?
Luckily for both amateur and professional bakers, there are a plethora of options available to get delicious cakes customized to your specific needs. Bakeries take the risk out of baking and ensure that what you bring to someone’s birthday party or an office get-together doesn’t lead to anyone questioning his or her cake faith.
Schnucks Bakery is such an option. A family-run grocery chain operating in five Midwestern states ―Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri ― Schnucks offers a wide variety of baked good products, from bagels to wedding cakes.
A Brief History of Schnucks
Schnucks began with Edwin Schnuck, a meat wholesaler operating out of St. Louis, Missouri. Knowing that there’s no better Midwestern combo than meats and sweets, Anna Schnuck, Edwin’s wife, opened a confectionary in the northern end of the city. From there, the business grew in both the number of stores and the quantity of services offered.
In fact, Schnucks pioneered many concepts that are commonplace in groceries today. Its first bakery plant opened in 1961, providing a central location to produce baked goods for its growing operations. Schnucks grocery stores also began to include pharmacies starting in 1970. In the 1990s, the company moved its food production from in-store to a central location, which helped to lower costs and keep prices reasonable.
While Schnucks began in St. Louis, it has since moved into other Midwestern states . It most recently entered Iowa, which had its first Schnucks store open in 2005. Today, despite only operating in the Midwest, Schnucks remains one of the most extensive family-run and privately-held grocery chains.
A Cake for Every Occasion
Schnucks Bakery offers a wide range of cakes that are perfect for casual celebrations or formal festivities. If you're the creative type, you can to pick from a wide variety of cake sizes, flavors, and toppings to help you make something unique. If you'd prefer to let the experts guide you, the store also offers numerous themed and prefabricated cakes.
Decorated Cakes
For decorated cakes, Schnucks offers five cake flavors:
Whether you're buying a cake for yourself or the whole office, you'll find your needs met at Schnucks thanks to its six size offerings:
A plain cake is fantastic, but a cake with your name on it is like owning a slice (or, in this case, several slices) of heaven. Schnucks allows you to personalize its sweet treats with any name or customizable message. Whether you are saying "Hi" to a new baby or "Goodbye" to college grad, decorated cakes are a great way to celebrate.
Gender reveal celebrations are all the rage right now, especially on social media. Schnucks can help you plan your reveal party with a cake that hides a secret layer of either blue or pink frosting in the middle. You'll be able to dazzle guests, and their taste buds, with a sweet treat and a fun surprise.
The variety of sizes and flavors offered by Schnucks also makes the bakery an excellent choice for your child's first birthday party. In fact, Schnucks bakeries even provide a free petite cake with any baby-themed cake that is 1/4 sheet or larger. A free small cake means your baby will have his or her personalized introduction into the wonderful world of birthday cakes.
Popular themed cakes for a child's first birthday range anywhere from classic superheroes (like Batman or Superman) to recent kids' movies (like Cars or The Secret Life of Pets) to all-time favorites (like construction or motorcycle themes). No matter what your infant may be into ― or what you want your baby to be into ― Schnucks Bakery should have a theme that fits perfectly.
Once your loved one has had his or her first birthday cake, and about 21 others, you'll be able to bring sweet-tasting treats to a whole new type of celebration ― graduation. Schnucks can create a personalized cake for your grad with his or her name and photo, along with the school's name, logo, and colors. Please note, though, that copyright restrictions may apply here, so it's possible that not all colleges or universities will be able to have their logos recreated in frosting.
Finally, if you want to celebrate, well, anything, you can special-order a cake based on almost anything, including TV shows, holidays, and sports teams. No matter what you need, Schnucks can create a customized cake to fit the situation. If you special-order a cake, the bakery will also throw in a cake server so you can focus on eating and celebrating and not distributing slices to the crowd.
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Wedding Cakes
Schnucks offers seven cake flavors for your big day:
Additionally, you can mix it up and use a different flavor for each tier, offering a delicious metaphor for compromise and creating a guaranteed crowd-pleaser for a gathering of potentially diverse tastes. It should be noted, though, that for the sake of stability, Schnucks does not recommend having either chocolate or red velvet as the base tier.
Each tier is then composed of two cake layers of the same flavor with frosting holding them together. This construction allows for maximum icing coverage and penetration, as well as a burst of color that can be a design element of the wedding itself. Schnucks can try and match the cake to any color elements, such as the flower centerpieces, groomsmen ties, or bridesmaid dresses.
When deciding on the height of your cake, there are various options available, and your ultimate decision should be based on the number of people attending. Once you get into three-tier or taller territory, Schnucks will even deliver the finished product to the reception, sparing you or your loved ones from any last-minute disasters.
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Other Cakes and Baked Goods
If a standard sheet or tiered cake isn't what you're looking for, Schnucks Bakery goes above and beyond in its selection of cupcake varieties:
Cupcakes come in multiple sizes, providing even more multitudes of options. Many events are shifting toward offering cupcakes instead of a more substantial, single cake. If you're looking to provide a more personalized cake experience to your guests, this may be the route to go.
Cookie cakes are another alternative option. Schnucks sells two types – sugar cookie and chocolate chip cookie, each with a 12-inch diameter. If you're looking for typically sized cookies, Schnucks also provides a comprehensive mix:
Prices and When To Order
Decorated Cakes
For Schnucks' decorated cakes, pricing depends on the size:
Timing is essential when it comes to decorating cakes, so make sure to get your order in as soon as possible, especially if it requires personalization for your event. If you're ordering for an occasion that many people will be celebrating (for example, graduations or Father's/Mother's Day), there will be lots of cake orders coming in at the same time, so be sure to order far in advance.
Wedding Cakes
Because wedding cakes come with so many variables, from height to the number of flavors to specific matching colors, Schnucks doesn't offer pricing on its website. However, you should be able to contact your local store to find out pricing for your specific vision.
As all aspects of your wedding day, including and especially the cake, should go perfectly, Schnucks will not accept any wedding cake orders fewer than seven days before it's needed. However, it's best to get your order in even well before that, so Schnucks has as much time as possible to get things exactly right for the big event.
How Schnucks Bakery Compares
Schnucks is not rare in that many other grocery chains – both regional and national – also offer cakes fresh from their in-house bakeries. Because cake is so essential, it's important to know where you can get the best.
Target, Kroger, and Wal-Mart all offer a broader selection of cake sizes than Schnucks does, as they also sell a 1/8 sheet and 8-inch double layer cakes. Both formats are perfect for family gatherings or small office get-togethers, so this is a definite miss on Schnucks' part.
Where Schnucks does come out ahead is in its smaller-sized offerings, including its petit and 4-inch cakes, which Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Target do not offer. These tinier versions make Schnucks the perfect choice when you're looking to keep your cake all to yourself.
When it comes to cost, Target and Kroger take the cake, or, rather, they help you take the cake with their low prices, each offering a full sheet at $42.50. Wal-Mart comes in right behind them at $43, with Schnucks even further behind at $44.99. Albertsons, another national chain with an in-house bakery department, takes the rear with a full sheet that is $13 more expensive than Schnucks' is.
Albertsons, however, takes the lead when it comes to the most robust selection of cake flavors, selling strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, and vanilla raspberry chocolate on top of the regular options, such as chocolate, marble, yellow, and white, that all four chains offer. Wal-Mart separates itself by being the only one to provide rainbow blast. Target and Schnucks also sell red velvet, while Kroeger has no unique offerings.
Kroeger and Albertsons make ordering easy by offering an online option. Both Target and Wal-Mart provide forms you can fill out online, but you must bring them to the physical location to place your order. Schnucks is happy to help you over the phone, and all orders must be placed in-store.
Sometimes the best way to compare among multiple options is to see the discerning information side-by-side:
Schnucks in a Nutshell
Cake, with its warm, soft, and fluffy goodness slathered with fresh, creamy, and sweet frosting, makes any event worth attending. It's the perfect capper to any night, whether you're celebrating or not.
If you are celebrating, though, and you need a unique way to commemorate the occasion, cake is the way to go, and Schnucks is a great way to get there. While it is not as inexpensive as Target, Kroger, and Wal-Mart are, it sits far closer to their prices than to Albertsons. Sure, Albertsons has fun flavor offerings that you can't get at other big grocery chains, but Schnucks holds its own and knows not to mess with the classics.
Since Schnucks is only available in five states, it's better to order from a national chain if you live outside of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri. However, if you're in the Midwest and celebrating a big day or even nothing at all, Schnucks is a sweet option for your cake needs.
Last update on 2023-09-22 at 06:36 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API