Cake Works

I would like to thank my friends for bringing Unilocal to my attention & what it does to companies like Cake Works! Friends know I’m just not the type to complain but to walk away & move on & money wasn’t even the object as long as my order were delivered nicely but today, I had to make action because my friends told me I don’t deserve to be treated this way! Let’s just say after all the crap they put me thru, I didn’t get all my money back when everyone said I should! Let me share my first encounter with this unprofessional company. Cake Works who received Zagat awards? What a joke! DO NOT order your cake from Cake Works! They screwed up my order, I was 2 hrs late for the bridal shower I hosted because I had to run to Party City to fix their f*ck up! They said the baker left for the day & can’t help fix their mistakes! They refuse to credit me until so many bitching later that I got partial for their screw up! I told them everyone at the party thought their cake was horrible, very dry, hard, old & metallic taste! The respond I got was fondant cakes suppose to taste that way! That’s the most ignorant thing to say ’cause I’ve traveled the world & fondants are amazing to the taste! I also said, everyone at the party said Hokulani Bakery, Costco & Sam’s Club cupcake & cakes are 101% way better & the worker just rolled her eyes like I’m making it up! These workers are NOT friendly & very RUDE! Nothin’ came out good from this mess but to tell me to pay partial even after I told them what I went thru! I was coming from Ewa & they are located on King St! Let me tell you about the cake stand they want me to deposit for $ 150 that wasn’t the right fit, scratched up, old & dirty! They can’t even find the right parts for the stand but decided to give it to me anyway & when I got home is when I found out! It took my family & friends hours to put it together & whatta ya know, missing pieces! The photographer can’t even capture the best part of the cake because Cake Works forgot to decorate the cupcakes that they charged me almost $ 10 a cupcake! Overpriced & I was disgusted! Nothing was edible! Not even the flowers! Lesson learned! I can go on & on about their customer service too but that’s okay. This company won’t last! Karma! Hokulani Bakery, Costco & Sam’s Club cake & cupcake it is next time! After reading the reviews about this company, I noticed many went through the same problem! They also said the workers were rude too! Well, good to know I’m not the only victim! Never again! I don’t even want to rate them one star! What happened to NO star & instead, give them a «hazard» warning!

I never wrote a bad review about a company but was compelled to share my friend’s horrible experience with Cake Works. She was the host for her future sister-in-law’s bridal shower. She ended up being 90minutes late for the shower which was in Kunia because she was dealing with cake that wasn’t decorated as ordered and a dirty cupcake stand which cost her $ 150 to rent. They told her «sorry but there’s no baker here to decorate your cake.» Mind you this order was placed over a month in advanced. She was too busy to argue and ran to Party City to buy decorations for the cake and fix a problem created by Cake Works. As a result the cupcakes were super DRY as if it sat in the sun for days. Everyone including the bride to be was grossed out and disappointed. The fondant on the cake tasted like metal in which Cake Works response was: «ya, it tastes weird like that.» In the end she ended up spending $ 9 per cupcake. But the most appalling part about the whole situation is the host was late for a memorable event for her future sister-​in-​law only to present to her and everyone the worse cupcakes and cake EVER! I truly believed boxed cupcakes would have been WAYYY better. Here’s a tip to everyone: You can get custom decorated cupcakes from SAMs Club for only $ 17.58 for 24 cupcakes or if you want a higher end cupcake that is moist and extremely flavorful, Hokulani’s never disappoints. I wish I could rate them with 0 stars but was forced to click 1 in order to post.

Been here few times to buy some Macarons but its my First time i order a cake here and they messed up and also over charge me.
I dont think so i will
Go back here again…

I live in California and my daughter and son in law were having a 10 year vow renewal reception at Sam Choy’s @ Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam. I was scrambling to find a bakery that would make a gluten free wedding cake when the coordinator that from Sam Choy’s recommended Cake Works.
Cake Works was awesome, they made a wonderful wedding cake. The top layer was gluten free and the bottom layers were regular cake. I had both and couldn’t tell the difference!
The flavor and texture of the cake were awesome and it looked exactly like the picture that I had sent to them via email of what I wanted.
Thank you!!!
Christine Civiletti

We’ve ordered cakes for birthdays, parties and one of our favs is the Passion Mandarin. It’s light, not too sweet and has fresh fruit as decoration and flavor. It was a hit with a relative who asked for another slice to take home. We’ve ordered specialty cakes in guava in a 3D hibiscus design and individually boxed decorated cupcakes for favors. Though sometimes cupcakes were a little dry…
The UH-​Moilili location is convenient for us to pre-​order, taste, work with setting up delivery service-​making it really easy.

We ordered from Cakeworks for our wedding and couldn’t be happier. We wanted a two tier naked cake for a wedding cake and a single tier for the grooms. They came out beautiful and tasted amazing. And were reasonably priced and were delivered on time! Great job, thank you!

Seriously just ok. The MACARONS were good just a tad too sweet. But I also got a guava strawberry mini cupcake and it was dry dry dry. Not a fan. The prices are expensive but many things in Waikiki are. $ 4 specialty MACARONS and a $ 2 dry mini cupcake will not bring me back. On to the next.

Cake Works makes 3-​layer 6″ and 8″ cakes in a variety of flavors that are perfect for birthdays or if you’re responsible for bringing the dessert.
The Strawberry Shortcake is popular, it’s a mild, light cake that’s mostly whipped cream. If you want something less sweet, go with the Passion Mango which has a tangy curd and mandarin oranges. And if you love chocolate, the Chocolate Decadence lives up to its name. This is rich chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache and a hint of raspberry. I suggest letting this cake sit outside the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before you serve to take the chill of the chocolate.
There are many other cake flavors including Peanut Butter Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Strawberry Guava, and Red Velvet, plus pastries and fancifully decorated macarons. My only criticism is the cake can be a bit dry. I always ask if the cakes were made today and am told yes, so my only conclusion is sometimes the cake is slightly over baked so they dry out. In these cases, the frosting definitely saves the day, their frostings and fillings are great. Whether it be whipped cream, buttercream, chocolate or cream cheese their frostings and fillings aren’t too sweet and don’t taste artificial.
So the next time you’re looking for something for dessert, pick up a cake from Cake Works to wow your guests.

«You guys did such a wonderful job creating our wedding cake. It looked so impressive in its beauty. And you delivered it to our wedding site on time and without a hitch. We would definitely recommend you to anybody who asks.
Thank you so much!
Donald and Helen »

Loooove Chef Abi and her Team– Always professional, courteous, and accomodating! Love the flavors, the artwork etc. Keep up the great work! Mahalo for all the cakes you make and have made for us!

I gave them a few details and they did the rest. The cake came out EXACTLY how I wanted it. Everyone enjoyed the cake and it was a hit.

I’ll be honest… when choosing a cake vendor for our wedding on Oahu, we weren’t too picky. I guess it’s because we were planning the wedding from San Francisco, and since we had to accept that first-​hand test testing wasn’t really a possibility, the cake wasn’t something we figured we’d put a lot of energy into. However, when the cake vendor we thought we were going to go with backed out 5 weeks before the wedding (ooo… THAT is a one star Unilocal review in queue), we put faith in our wedding planner to find us a backup. She found Cake Works. They ended up being super easy to work with. We ordered a very simple 3-​tier cake (we had about 120 guests), strawberry guava butter cream flavor (my inner girly-​girl loved that the inside of our cake was pink), white buttercream frosting. It was tasty! And at what we thought was a very reasonable price (full transparency: about $ 500). I’d definitely recommend them to the next soon-​to-​be newlyweds.
For an additional perspective, maybe I’ll write an update on our one-​year anniversary, after we have a bite of the top tier of our cake (which we saved and is currently chilling in out freezer) ;). Mahalo, Cake Works!

Tried their strawberry birthday cake, it was amazing!
Not too sweet, very moist, and very low cost for the taste.
It’s nothing fancy really, and decoration is minimal. But the main thing is the cake!
Loved it! Just the right amount of sweetness!
FYI, Cake Works, I’ll send you an invite, if you do read my comments.
You have great cakes, and I’d love share you with all my client and friends; while printing you free money for what my service can bring you.

Cakeworks specializes in desserts and hits some out of the park: chocolate decadence cake with salted caramel frosting and delicious macarons, but others are a miss. I have been using this company for three years now for everything from cupcakes (can be dry, or delicious), cookies, to birthday cakes (mine and my dad’s), and my wedding cake. I recently had a bad experience with my dad’s birthday cake (see paragraph below) but Abi the owner reached out to me to try and set things right. I appreciated that, it shows she really cares about her company and loyal customers. That said, I will leave the pictures and paragraph up so you can be sure not to use that design of cake or risk the not so great results. I will continue to go to Cakeworks for macarons and that salted caramel frosting.
Re Oct 17^th order:
Unfortunately I have to write a review for my dad’s birthday cake. I spent $ 136 on the cake (not including the cost of the maile I myself bought and provided). When I picked up the cake the music that was attached to fondant was bubbly all Around (not smooth like the Sample design I had looked at) also the fondant had a nick/​Crack in the very front top of the cake that was obvious. Even the writing on the chocolate wasn’t very even or professional looking. It looked very sloppy for 136 dollars. Take a look at the pics yourself.

I think Cake works has the best tasting macaroons on the island so far. The macaroons I have tasted from other places were just too sweet for me. It was so sweet that I couldn’t taste the actual flavor. Cakework’s macaroons are different. There are so many unique flavor a to choose from. My favorite is the blue Hawaii. They also have really cute character macaroons that you can order!
The location is really random and inconvenient but the macaroons are worth it! They are located right across of the humane society.

Great little treats!
FOOD:
I came here to pick up some mini-​cupcakes and macarons for a staff party. These little treats did the trick. Every option was tasty!
My only problem was that I couldn’t remember what I had ordered! Next time I will remember to have them label the different sweets.
SERVICE & SPACE
The service was okay. The girl who helped me was really sweet, but as she rung me up there were two other employees talking near by and didn’t really acknowledge me, which was awkward, but I understand it’s a cramped space.
The parking is very tricky, definitely try to back into the spaces, because pulling out of their parking an into the H1 entryway can be very scary!
PRICE:
Good prices for the mini treats make it easy to get many types of mini cupcakes and macarons.

After 6 days of being sick and completely out of commission, I wanted a cupcake as my come back to life type of reward. I was tired of having soup and tasting all the metallic chemicals in my mouth from my many mixtures of prescriptions. I decided one morning that I would take a walk towards my usual nearby cupcake place. I don’t know if the stars and the universe were not aligned that day but I’ve experienced horrible service from that place. So I took my business elsewhere.
Throughout the day, I’ve had to run many errands and catch up from the week and decided I would make a cupcake run afterwards. Let me tell you, when you’re searching for cupcakes towards the end of the day, the journey isn’t so fun. Especially on a Saturday evening. It was starting to get late and I’ve noticed that I’ve scouted just about a lot of the areas. It’s either they’re sold out for the day and are near closing time. I’ve made visits to random bakeries I didn’t know existed before but either didn’t specialize in cupcakes or just didn’t carry them. I didn’t want to settle for grocery store cupcakes. At this point, all I had in my mind were. «I WANT MY CUPCAKE!!»
Thanks to Unilocal,we found Cake Works! Cake Works is located on the corner of S. King St., across from the Hawaiian Humane Society. At this point, it has become a mission and I refused to go home with at least one cupcake. I had made a phone call to inquire about cupcakes. I didn’t want to waste a trip if they didn’t have any at all. Thankfully, the lady that answered the phone at the bakery had stated «Yes, we have cupcakes!». Thankfully I was headed in that direction. The bakery is not very big but very welcoming. Their brick and mortar had a cottage feeling and it was quite lovely. The shop specializes in wedding/​custom/​special occassion
cakes, breakfast pastries, gift items, french Macarons and of course cupcakes. Even though the shop is small, there are plenty of outdoor seatings with a couple of seats inside to enjoy. Since they’re near closing at the time of my arrival, my selection was very limited. Thankfully, they had the peanut butter chocolate (full size and not mini) cupcake and red velvet with cream cheese icing cupcakes for $ 3. In addition with my Unilocal check-​in, I scored on a free Creamsicle french macaron with my purchase. My one disappointment was when I took my first bite of my two cupcakes, it was a little hard. I am thinking perhaps because it’s towards the end of the day and I got a bad batch? I will have to come back again another day to try more of their desserts in the morning or mid day. Otherwise, customer service was good and I will come back again to try more of their other desserts.
Parking is limited on their property. Street parking is a walk.

I’m in love.
I have literally drove past this place for years, but never took the time to pop in and check it out. Probably because the location isn’t very welcoming.
Cake Works is awkwardly located across from the Humane Society on the corner of King street, very close by the Waialae on ramp. It was a bit hard to pull into the parking lot and it was also hard leaving the parking lot.
Once we got the parking situated, I then was happily surprised with the most amazing macarons ever! I WAS DYING WHEN I SAW HOW CUTE THESE MACARONS ARE!!! xD
They had pokemon, super heros, disney, piggys, totoro and even mustache ones! AHHHHHHHHHHH cuteness overload XD Only bummer was each macaron cost about $ 4 each =_​_​_​_​_​_​=
Not only were these macarons adorably decorated, they also taste AMAZING!

A friend got me a small container of cupcakes from Cake Works. It provided me with the perfect opportunity to sample some of these flavors; I had heard about Cake Works and was interested in checking them out.
I still haven’t been to the actual storefront yet, but based on the sampling of cupcakes that I tried, I think I’d be more prone to ordering the macarons next time. Don’t get me wrong; the cupcakes are cute and the mini sizes are perfect for sampling or for a small indulgence. It’s just that, after living in So Cal for three years and enjoying Sprinkles Cupcakes on a regular basis, I think my standards are pretty high when it comes to cupcakes (moistness, flavor, frosting, etc.).
However, I still want to visit the Cake Works store for myself so I can taste those macarons. Here’s my take on the cupcake flavors that I got:
«Red Velvet»: This red velvet cake came topped with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Upon eating it, I didn’t even realize that this was a cream cheese … I thought it was a buttercream frosting. I’m pretty picky with my red velvet and only like it with cream cheese (not buttercream) frosting. While the cake was pretty good, I found it to be slightly dry and I wasn’t the hugest fan of the white chocolate cream cheese. I think regular, plain cream cheese would have sufficed for this southern classic.
«Carrot Cake»: This little cupcake also came topped with white chocolate cream cheese frosting, and I gave it to my auntie to try because she loves carrot cake. Though she really adores the carrot cake from Sprinkles Cupcakes because it comes filled with shredded carrots, she did still enjoy this bite-​sized morsel. I think she prefers cream cheese frosting when it comes to carrot cake, but she said this version was still tasty and she was glad she tried it.
«Strawberry Guava»: My cousin really likes strawberry, so I gave her this bubblegum pink-​hued cupcake to try. I thought it was featured a regular strawberry flavor but it turned out to be strawberry guava. My cousin ended up really liking this flavor, saying it was really refreshing and the cake was moist. She especially enjoyed the guava filling.
«Chocolate»: Although I didn’t see this cupcake as any of the options on the online menu, I’m pretty sure one of the flavors I got was chocolate with chocolate buttercream. This ended up being my favorite of the ones included in my little sampler. The chocolate cake was moist but slightly dense, and I actually really liked the sweet chocolate buttercream. Ideal choice for any chocoholic.
«Lemon-​Lilikoi»: Since I don’t really like lemon flavors, I gave this cupcake to my mom to try. She said that it definitely had that refreshing taste from the lemon – complete with the zing – but she said there was also a sweet balance from the lilikoi. She said the cake was a little too dry for her liking, but she was glad she got to try it.
«Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch in Chocolate Cup»: This sounds like a dessert that’s right up my alley because I love the sweet flavor of hazelnut and this treat seems to be a spin off of Reese’s, my favorite candy. Definitely can’t wait to try the contrasting textures featured in this dessert one day.
«Chocolate, Macadamia and Hawaiian Sea Salt Caramel Mini Tart»: I’ve recently been obsessed with anything containing a chocolate-​sea salt combo, and this tart sounds like it’s worth trying. I often love the sweetness from the chocolate mixed in with the slightly salty taste from the caramel/​sea salt, so I’m curious to try this dessert one day.

While researching bakeries for my wedding, a friend directed me to Cake Works. Though there were some bumps in the road, mostly due to their awkward location, they did a fantastic job.
As they say, «location, location, location” — and I often wonder how a building was even erected in this location. Whenever I am driving here I am certain I will crash because of the confusing intersection, or someone will crash into me. Parking is also pretty scarce, but when I finally do power down my car I breathe a huge sigh of relief, resisting the urge to flop on the ground and shout– «LAND!»
The shop itself is also quite small, and warm, and busy. But their customer service more than makes up for it. For my initial consultation meeting, I was brought out an assortment of mini cupcakes to sample the different flavours. It was fun for me and my bridesmaids to try the cupcakes, and super cute, too! Though I adored the mocha macademia nut cake, I opted for a lighter Lillikoi (passionfruit) cake, since my wedding was going to be outdoors. The consultant made a very smart suggestion to order fondant icing too, so my cake didn’t melt during the outdoor reception. The staff was always full of helpful hints like this!
I worked with the staff to choose a design for my cake, which was very crisp and clean, since my wedding was Kate Spade inspired. The consultant happened to be a huge Kate Spade fan so she knew exactly what i wanted.
On the big day, they delivered the cake in a chilled truck to my wedding location, and helped us store it in a fridge until the reception. I ordered a two-​tier cake for show for the cutting ceremony, as well as a large sheet cake for all of the guests to enjoy. The sheet cake was the same high quality and delectable flavor, and was very reasonable– I think it was $ 75 to serve about 120 people?
When it comes to planning a wedding, there are so many parts and people to keep track of and prepare for, so I was very grateful to Cakeworks for operating so seamlessly and making the process very simple. If you are thinking of using Cakeworks for your wedding or event, i would highly recommend them. I hope that someday soon they can move to a new location that reflects their caliber of service.