More advice needed

[MS_Mama]

Sorry to come here with so many questions but I always get such good suggestions and I honestly just don't know anywhere else to ask.  Our youngest is about to turn 1 so I am looking for a bakery to get a 1st bday cake that comes with the little cake for the baby to smash.  any suggestions in Hackensack or nearby towns?  All the grandparents are flying in so I want to get something special.

thanks!!

[Editor]

Two town favorites:

B&W: http://www.yelp.com/biz/b-and-w-bakery-hackensack
Hackensack Pastry Shop: http://www.yelp.com/biz/hackensack-pastry-shop-hackensack

You can also try:
Columbia Bakery: http://www.yelp.com/biz/colombia-bakery-hackensack

[just watching]

I guess it now OK, after the election, to give a plug to Hackensack Pastry Shop.......lol.

You might as well try to be their friend, and if you are lucky, they and all their friends in office will be nice to you.

[Editor]

When baking and politics are confused, I give up.

[BLeafe]

New place at 685 Main St does custom cakes: Semisweet Desserts (north of Fairmount Ave near the traffic light)

This was part of an article in The Record today:


Semisweet Desserts, Hackensack

Marisa Iapicco admits she is terrified. The 28-year-old graduate of the Manhattan-based Institute of Culinary Education is opening a 1,000-square-foot bakery on Main Street in Hackensack — by herself. "I feel very vulnerable," the South Hackensack resident confided. "I am putting everything out there."

What Iapicco is putting out there is her colorful, hand-decorated cookies and custom cakes that she has been peddling through her website and at food festivals for the past year. "People who tasted my cookies were shocked by them," she said. "They didn't expect them to taste so good."

Word of mouth helped grow her fledgling culinary venture. "People would order my cookies for birthdays, bridal showers, graduations. I've made them in heart shapes, with couple's names — whatever." (They cost $42 a dozen.)

She used the kitchens of Hesterides Kitchens & Bakeries, a cooperative commercial space in Hawthorne, to make her sweets, and named her company Semisweet Desserts, though she is thinking of changing the name. "People think it's for diabetics," she says. Her creations are decidedly not sugar-free. They are, however, artisanal and seasonal. "I love the artisanal movement, the local movement. It really speaks to me."

She also loves baking. "I find baking very soothing. It's very relaxing." Iapicco even likes the hours. "I hated the hours of working at a restaurant. As a baker, I start early morning but I have the afternoon."

And she also loves New Jersey. "I grew up in Fort Lee and Rochelle Park," she said. "I tried to leave New Jersey — I went to college in Philadelphia — but I'm back. I like the pizza places, Palisades Park." But — and do keep this a secret — she is not wild about sweets. "I'd rather have a bowl of mashed potatoes than a bowl of ice cream," she said. Her customers most probably can't say the same.

Semisweet Desserts is at 685 Main St., Hackensack (201-487-0737; www.semisweetdesserts.com).